Obama White House CYA Move to Reduce impact of ObamaCare: McDonald's, 29 other firms get health care coverage waivers

Remember how Nancy Pelosi said this?



And remember Obama said this?



He said if you like your health care plan, you can keep it, right?

I had a simple question that I emailed to the White House 5 times without a response.

Question: What is to prevent an employer from unilaterally dropping an employee from a health care plan?

Well, I didn’t get an answer.

What a surprise?

My suspicion has always been that there was absolutely nothing preventing an employer from dropping all health care benefits even if it meant paying a fine under “ObamaCare” which would be cheaper than paying the expected increase in cost.

So technically Obama can claim he wasn’t lying like a dog for over a year and a half while he was trying to sell his healthcare debacle if everybody liked their plan, but got dropped anyway.

But, Obama got caught with his pants down in the final anbalysis when employers were threatening to go the “the drop coverage” route and to save the embarrassment of being called a liar after all, he gives out waivers to companies to avoid the true blowback by voters.

Maybe he’ll give out so many waivers to render Obamacare null and void in the process?

USA Today reports that mearly a million workers won't get a consumer protection in the U.S. health reform law meant to cap insurance costs because the government exempted their employers.

Thirty companies and organizations, including McDonald's (MCD) and Jack in the Box (JACK), won't be required to raise the minimum annual benefit included in low-cost health plans, which are often used to cover part-time or low-wage employees.

The Department of Health and Human Services, which provided a list of exemptions, said it granted waivers in late September so workers with such plans wouldn't lose coverage from employers who might choose instead to drop health insurance altogether.

Without waivers, companies would have had to provide a minimum of $750,000 in coverage next year, increasing to $1.25 million in 2012, $2 million in 2013 and unlimited in 2014.

"The big political issue here is the president promised no one would lose the coverage they've got," says Robert Laszewski, chief executive officer of consulting company Health Policy and Strategy Associates. "Here we are a month before the election, and these companies represent 1 million people who would lose the coverage they've got."

The United Agricultural Benefit Trust, the California-based cooperative that offers coverage to farm workers, was allowed to exempt 17,347 people.

San Diego-based Jack in the Box's waiver is for 1,130 workers, while McDonald's asked to excuse 115,000.

The plans will be exempt from rules intended to keep people from having to pay for all their care once they reach a preset coverage cap. McDonald's, which offers the programs as a way to cover part-time employees, told the Obama administration it might re-evaluate the plans unless it got a waiver.

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ObamaCare Slaps New Yorker (Doug Gowland) with 25% Rate Hike says “ObamaCare has just made me $icker!”

"Seven hundred dollars a month for insurance is a lot of money. My choice is to find cheaper insurance or none. Can't wait until Election Day."
Doug Gowland, New Yorker

It was widely reported that certain aspects of the new healthcare reform law went into effect on Thursday. Here in New York, a Greenwich Village resident got the shock of his life when he received a letter from his health insurance provider.

The New York Post reports ObamaCare’s a painful shot in the wallet.

A Greenwich Village resident was socked with an eye-popping 25 percent increase in health premiums -- and his insurance company is slapping part of the blame on President Obama's health-care overhaul that took effect yesterday.

Doug Gowland's monthly bill will jump $140 -- from $565 to $705 -- under the hike, according to a letter he received from insurer EmblemHealth.

And the annual cost for the self-insured 62-year-old man's mostly bare-bones plan will increase $1,680 -- from $6,780 to $8,460.

In the notice, EmblemHealth told Gowland, who is healthy, "The proposed rate increase includes two components: a basic increase on your type plan and an increase due to the cost of enhanced benefits required by the new federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act."

A steamed Gowland, who works in real estate, said: "Seven hundred dollars a month for insurance is a lot of money. My choice is to find cheaper insurance or none. Can't wait until Election Day."

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This story is being replicated ALL OVER THE COUNTRY! Folks are really mad because Obama and the Democrats said this:



Is ObamaCare really affordable? Costs are skyrocketing BECAUSE of ObamaCare.

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NHS Waiting Lists Rise after Doctors' Hours Cut

America, if you want to know what ObmaaCare will be like, look no further than across the pond in England at their national health care system.

Patients there have to wait weeks for surgeries and its only getting worse.

Can you say, “We’re screwed!”



UK Telegraph

Hospital waiting times have begun to rise again after years of decline following the introduction of European rules on junior doctors' working hours

Waiting times in the NHS had been dropping since the 1990s but the rules limiting junior doctors to a 48-hour week, which were implemented last August, had reversed the trend. Thousands more patients were now waiting longer than 18 weeks for surgery.

Ministers were seeking to renegotiate Britain’s position on the European Working Time Directive, including a possible opt-out for NHS staff.

The Royal College of Surgeons carried out the first comprehensive analysis of how the directive had affected waiting times.

According to the research, the proportion of NHS patients having to wait longer than the 18-week target for non-emergency surgery such as hip replacements had almost doubled from 1.5 per cent 18 months ago to nearly three per cent in March this year.

Waiting times reached an all-time low at the end of 2008, with patients waiting just a few weeks for surgery on average.
However, since the EU directive cut junior doctors’ hours from 56 to 48 per week, these gains had been wiped out, the Royal College said.

According to data from the Department of Health, the number of patients waiting longer than 18 weeks — from GP referral to being treated as an inpatient — fell steadily from April 2007, when almost 34,000 people were waiting, to 8,674 in December 2008.

The figure remained stable at about 10,000 until June 2009, just before the new rules came in, when the rise began.

In March this year, it had risen to 17,515, a level last seen in September 2007.

John Black, the president of the Royal College of Surgeons, said the increase was predictable.

“If you have the same number of patients, no more doctors and ask them to work less then it is inevitable that the time available for elective procedures will reduce and waiting lists grow,” he said.

Almost two thirds of consultants now frequently operated without assistants because departments were so stretched.

Mr Black said most European countries had bypassed the legislation by either not monitoring compliance or, as in Germany and Holland, finding ways around the directive.

“We look forward to this happening in the UK,” he said.
Sir Richard Thompson, the new president of the Royal College of Physicians, said the directive had been a “complete disaster” for both patient care and the quality of training for doctors.

“We are not providing the service or the training that we require,” he said.

“I cannot overemphasise the damage to service provision and to training.”
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