Ever since the waivers became a news item the administration has been working hard to downplay them. First they changed the website where the new waivers were announced, with no announcement or link to the new site. Now they’ve started waiting until Friday afternoons to release the latest figures:
The Obama administration granted another 106 waivers last month from part of the healthcare reform law — the first round of three-year waivers the Health and Human Services Department has approved.
The new approvals bring the total number of waivers to 1,472, according to HHS. Those figures cover waivers granted through the end of July. HHS will stop granting new waivers after September.
In case you missed it, Obama admitted the real purpose of these waivers at one of his recent bus tour campaign stops:
how do you manage that transition in a way in which a bunch of companies don’t say to themselves well we’re just going to eliminate healthcare…we’re willing to give some waivers to some companies that are doing something when it comes to healthcare because those employees don’t have a better option right now but as we build up this better option then they’ll be able to take advantage of that better option.
In other words, they don’t want companies to start dumping employees–exactly as conservative predicted would happen–until the exchanges are ready for them to be dumped upon. Once the exchanges are up and running and the waivers end, you can bet a lot of companies will be availing themselves of this option.
No comments:
Post a Comment