Three SEIU Chapters Granted ObamaCare Waivers…Freshmen Republicans Want To Know Why

Is there any better example of do as we say, not as we do, than ObamaCare? (h/t Gateway Pundit)

Three local chapters of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)–whose political action committee spent $27 million supporting Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election–have received temporary waivers from a provision in the Obamacare law.

The three SEIU chapters include the Local 25 in Obama’s hometown of Chicago.

The waivers allow health insurance plans to limit how much they will spend on a policy holder’s medical coverage for a given year. Under the new health care law, however, such annual limits are phased out by the year 2014. (Under HHS regulations, annual limits can be no less than $750,000 for 2011, no less than $1.25 million in 2012 and no less than $2 million in 2013.)

The SEIU, with more than 2 million members nationally, includes health care workers, janitors, security guards, and state and local government workers.

The three SEIU locals, covering a total of 36,064 enrollees, are covered by the federal waivers, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

But there is a new Sheriff in town after November and this kind of behavior will no longer be allowed to be sweeped under the rug. The new Republicans on the Congressional Oversight subcommittee on health want answers on who and why certain organizations are getting waivers to the ObamaCare requirements: (h/t Michelle Malkin)

“If there are exemptions,” Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) told The Hill, “what was the process by which those exemptions were sought and given?”

“I think those are fair questions to ask,” he said, “and I expect we will.”

Gowdy, a freshman and former prosecutor, got the chairmanship on Tuesday. The health subcommittee has jurisdiction over federal health policy and food and drug safety, in addition to the District of Columbia and federal records.

Gowdy said he met with Oversight Committee staff Wednesday and immediately began planning future hearings.

The below video is from November when the number of organizations who were getting waivers was at 111. It’s now over 200:

Obama’s Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services dismissed all these complaints:

However, HHS Kathleen Sebelius, in a sit-down interview with The Hill on Friday, called both assertions “pretty ludicrous.”

“The provisions in the law always gave some flexibility to me as secretary,” she said.

Sebelius said the waivers were necessary to help individuals keep their health insurance – even if it isn’t the best coverage – until new insurance exchanges opening in 2014 allow individuals and small businesses to pool their purchasing power.

But why are Obama’s pals and big donors the ones getting these waivers?

We’re gonna find out:

Also Tuesday, the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee wrote to the Department of Health and Human Services requesting that it provide a list of every individual, organization, business, state or other entity that requested a waiver, obtained a waiver, or has been denied a waiver for any part of the reform law.

HHS had as of Dec. 3 granted annual waivers to 222 health plans covering 1.5 million workers, exempting them from the requirement that they cover up to $750,000 in patients’ healthcare costs in 2011. The waivers were given to low-value “mini-med” plans that likely would have dropped coverage if they hadn’t been exempted. Republicans have suggested the waivers are used to reward political allies or are hard evidence that the law doesn’t work.

The committee’s vice-chairman, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), is also a freshman. Gosar, a dentist, said the fact that conservative outsiders got the top two spots is indicative of a new tone in Washington following the mid-term elections.

Remember this?

Some transparency.

Curt

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