Current Events vs. Founding Documents

Administration Grants Health Care Indulgences

Posted by Mark Musselman on Sept. 20, 2011

healthcare, executive power

Entry 108

Current Event

According to NewsMax.com, Jan 18, 2011 (full article available on-line)

The Obama administration has granted over 220 healthcare-reform waivers to unions, corporations, and nonprofits in order to stave off massive policy cancellations and rate hikes affecting 1.5 million workers, according to documents posted online by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Republicans charge the scores of waivers reflects fatal flaws in the legislation.

“I think it tells you everything you need to know about this law,” Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., told Newsmax in an exclusive interview. “The very fact that they had to immediately grant these waivers so that these people wouldn’t lose their health insurance tells you that if they should be exempt from the law, the rest of us should be exempt from the law too.”

In an exclusive interview, constitutional scholar and patient advocate Betsy McCaughey tells Newsmax.TV: “The key issue is that under our system of government, the law is supposed to apply equally to everyone. But unfortunately, the Obama administration is moving in the totalitarian direction: It’s who you know, rather than whether you are duty-bound to obey the law.

“So some companies get waivers, other companies don’t,” McCaughey tells Newsmax. “There’s no rhyme or reason or way to describe why some deserve it, and some don’t. And that is really the end of the rule of law in our system of government.”

During the healthcare debate, President Obama promised that under his proposals people could keep their current insurance coverage. But in September, McDonald’s Corp. announced that it might have to drop coverage for 30,000 workers due to onerous ObamaCare provisions. Just days later, however, HHS announced it had granted the company a one-year waiver from implementing the reforms.

Edmund Haislmaier, a senior research fellow in health policy studies for the Heritage Foundation, says the administration issued the waiver to avoid the pre-election political nightmare of “30,000 workers at a business that everyone already knows, because there’s one in every town, suddenly losing their coverage.”

Scores of other organizations followed McDonald’s lead. As of October, about 30 firms had received waivers. But the latest HHS tally shows that 222 unions, corporations, and other entities now have received them. And 103 of those exemptions came after the November midterm elections.

The complete list of waivers granted can be found here.

…
“Certainly, it has forced up premiums,” she says. “Look, there’s no tooth fairy. When the law requires insurance companies to cover more, or in this case to eliminate lifetime caps on what they’ll pay out when you’re sick, or annual caps on what they’ll pay out when you’re sick, you have to pay more.

“If insurance companies eliminated the cap on what they’d pay out under your homeowner’s policy, or your auto policy, you’d have to pay more for those policies too. The more you get, the more you pay,” she says.

The health care reform bill passed by the 111th Congress gives the secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, broad latitude in setting rules to administer the program.

HHS has issued two letters of regulatory guidance on waivers. Its policy requires organizations to demonstrate “why compliance with the interim final regulations would result in a significant decrease n access to benefits for those currently covered by such plans or policies, or significant increase in premiums paid by those covered by such plans or policies, along with any supporting documentation.”

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According to MSNBC/AP ; June 17,2011(full article available on-line)

The Obama administration says it will end a controversial health care waiver program in September. Officials announced Friday that all applications for new waivers and renewals of existing ones have to be in by Sept. 22.

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VS

The Obama Administration VS. The Constitution

Founding Document

The US Constitution: Article I, Section 8

 The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

The US Constitution: Amendment 14.

1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

We the People:

So if your employer is not favored by the Obama Administration, it may not be granted a healthcare indulgence waiver.  Thus it will be economically less competitive.  Our Constitution does not allow the government this power to discriminate.  To meet the equal protection clause of the 14^th amendment, the Administration is required to either grant waivers to all, or none.