Seeing What's in it

Over at Hot Air John Sexton reports that the number of waivers granted by Health and Human Services to businesses and unions who have requested exemptions from the Health Care Reform law (Obamacare) has shot from 222 to 729 in one month. Over two million people are now exempted from the program.

Sexton explains the reason for these waivers:

This ever-expanding list of waivers is the direct result of ObamaCare raising the annual benefit caps on certain health plans. Obviously, a plan with higher annual limits is potentially more costly than one without them. The money to cover the difference in premiums has to come from somewhere. Without the waivers, it will come from the employers who are forced by law to upgrade to the more expensive plan. In other words, the 729 organizations who have received waivers are not seeking refuge from an unintended consequence, but from the costs associated with one of ObamaCare’s features. The real question is what these businesses will do once the waiver program comes to an end.

By requiring insurance providers to raise the benefit levels that they're obligated to provide to their clients in a year, Obamacare in effect forces the providers to raise the premiums they charge. This means that businesses and unions who pay part or all of their employees' insurance have to pay more for their employees. That means that these businesses will have the following options: cut costs elsewhere, lay people off, or opt not to take on new employees.

That's a heck of a position for a "jobs president" to put businesses in.

Actually there's another option for employers, one that is probably the intent of Obamacare: drop employee health care coverage. This would drive employees who can't get care through their employers into government provided insurance, a single-payer system, like many European countries have. It would probably also drive insurance companies out of business.

When the President assures us that we'll be able to keep our current insurance under Obamacare I'm sure his aides in the White House are all snickering.

Before the vote to pass this bill last year, then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi perplexed people of common sense everywhere when she told us that we had to pass the bill in order to see what was in it. Well, now we're seeing what's in it, and, just like seeing what's in a sausage, it isn't pretty. That's why the GOP and, I suspect, a lot of moderate Democrats, want to see the thing repealed.