Posted on 06/07/2011 9:42:13 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
According to testimony at a recent hearing of the House Oversight health care subcommittee, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) doesn’t actually grant the Department of Health and Human Services the authority to exempt employers from the law’s annual minimum health care coverage requirements. The Daily Caller reports:
Language granting HHS that power was never in the original law. Instead, through new rules and regulations, HHS gave itself the power last summer using a broad interpretation of certain parts of the law.
The annual limit requirement waivers exempt recipients for one year from having to increase the amount of health care coverage they provide their workers. Each year between now and 2014, the minimum annual limit rises to a new, higher amount. Though the waivers are only for one year, recipients can reapply and be re-approved every year through 2014.
Heritage Foundation health policy expert Edmund Haislmaier said HHS “exceeded its statutory authority” by issuing such waivers.
And as of May 13, 2011, HHS had issued quite a few — 1,372. But maybe such a wide interpretation of the regulatory power granted to HHS by Obamacare was warranted? Not so, says Haislmaier. In 21 other sections of PPACA, Congress explicitly grants HHS waiver authority with respect to other provisions. Obviously, that suggests Congress would have explicitly granted the Department the authority to waive the minimum annual coverage requirements, as well.
Why does this not surprise me? This administration has made no secret of its willingness to legislate through the executive branch. But this example exudes a special irony: The executive branch has to improperly legislate to undo — not extend – the legislative branch’s unwieldy legislation.
It’s all made worse, of course, by the way in which HHS has granted the waivers — with little to no transparency and with every appearance of political favoritism. But one congressman seeks to change that. Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.), along with 31 of his Congressional colleagues, recently sent a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to request clarifications about the waiver application and grant process.
“It is sheer hypocrisy to say that this is about healthcare ‘equality,’ but still grant special privilege exemptions to labor unions and businesses,” Huelskamp said in a news release. “Evidence continues to flow forth that these waivers are sometimes about who you know, as a multitude of them have been granted to labor unions that have supported the president or to businesses that are in former Speaker Pelosi’s district. This entire waiver process screams of political favoritism and is an abomination to the democratic process, to the concept of equality under the law, and to individual freedom and liberty.”
The letter asks Sebelius to identify the number and type of denied applications, the number and type of pending applications and the average time it takes to make a decision about whether to grant a waiver. That information would be a good start — if Sebelius responds — but, in light of Haislmaier’s testimony, the secretary has even more explaining to do.
I thought the GOP had poured over every line of the bill..why wasn’t this picked up earlier? seems like very sloppy staff work..
Let’s have hearings on waivers. Sooner than later.
Mr. Levinson graduated from the University of Southern California and holds law degrees from Georgetown and George Washington Universities. He is a member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners.
Could zero stand up against a REAL IG that had fraud examiner as part of his resume' ?
Good. I have been calling for that for a long, long time. It will be more revealing than the list of those receiving the waivers.
“The law is what we say it is.”
REMOVE ALL WAIVERS NOW~!!!!
BEFORE THE ELECTION YOU GOP MORONS
SHOW PEOPLE WHAT WILL HAPPEN
This is a complete violation of the equal protection afforded under the constitution. You cannot make laws that only apply to some people. Waivers are unequal treatment.
The competitors of any company given waivers should be screaming about this~!!!
I know this is off the subject, but how much did the government spend in the idiotic “stimulus”? Wasn’t it trillions? Didn’t this stupid “stimulus” send us over the edge from a deficit of billions to a deficit of trillions? Why isn’t anyone talking about how this ignoramus, completely stupid “stimulus” was like the iceberg that sunk the Titanic?
and the Republican party will do nothing again...
You are correct, but one assumes that they read every line of the bill carefully once it was passed, and published. It should not have taken this long to come to that concluson that exemptions aren’t in the law..
And the GOP will respond by doing:
* A) Nothing
* B) Nothing
* C) Nothing
* D) All of the above
They'll be overdue for about 3 years so the tax plus interest and penalties should be enough to finally ruin almost all of their kind.
This needs to be shouted at every administration press conference.
Good point. You’re right on this, Ken5050.
The stimulus bill itself was about $830 billion. But it was followed almost immediately by an Omnibus spending bill of $500 billion which the Dems rationalized as more stimulus to the economy. Thus, we spent about 1.3 Trillon specifically directed to stimulus, but there was plenty of other stimulus spending hidden in other bills that weren't marketed specifically as stimulus bills. It seems most of that money went to the states to cover the govt worker saleries and Govt union obligations the States did not have the funds to pay. Therefore all it accomplished was to delay the State financial meltdowns for a couple of years. Well, two years later the States are once again right where they were and we have nothing to show for the trillion and a half dollars we flushed down the toilet.
The list, ping
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We have entered into a season of lawlessness in this nation. If our government doesn’t obey our laws, neither will the people.
This only happened in the last year and half or so. People talk like this is some mysterious thing that just sort happened whenever and somehow now we're in this mess and we need government to "help" us out of it when of course as always government created the mess and just recently made it a lot worse under His Impostership. Why aren't people (who know better) shouting protests from the rooftops?
This and ObamaCare are THE economic issues that should be constantly hammered on to the American people.
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