"Waiver" Fail

11/15/10

By Hadley Heath

The number of ObamaCare “waivers” granted by the Department of Health and Human Services rose this week to 111 from only 30 just weeks ago – nearly quadrupling in number. 

It’s as if the DHHS is saying, “The mandates are for everyone!”

“Except these people!”

From Michelle Malkin’s commentary:

Now comes word that Torquemada HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has approved a whopping 111 waivers for businesses of all sizes, along with more unions and other providers of health insurance. The escapees include employers of many low-wage and part-time workers whose health insurance plans would otherwise be dropped, including Darden Restaurants — the parent company of the Olive Garden and Red Lobster and other chains, which employ some 34,000 people…

The list of most recently approved refugees is here. Make no mistake: Team Obama isn’t granting the waivers out of bleeding-heart compassion for the affected workers, but out of a panicked urgency to avoid a public relations disaster.

What lesson can we learn from this?  Well, we might make the assessment that the government’s tampering in business has reached an Atlas-Shrugged pitch: If you don’t have a “man in Washington,” you are out of luck.  That especially applies to smaller businesses, who will be hit hardest by ObamaCare.

But really, the lesson that government tampers too much in business is not a new lesson.  Really what we should learn from this waiver mess is… Oops, ObamaCare was a bad idea! 

Proponents of the law in Congress will vote against every measure to repeal it.  The DHHS and the Obama Administration will fight against the health care lawsuits with everything they’ve got, defending their piece of legislation as constitutional as well as “fair,” “humanitarian,” or any number of other good things.  But doesn’t it look bad when waiver by waiver, these same players are allowing for individualized repeal plans?  If ObamaCare was good policy to begin with, these waivers wouldn’t be necessary.

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