{"id":8458,"date":"2011-01-27T19:48:13","date_gmt":"2011-01-28T00:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=8458"},"modified":"2011-01-27T19:48:13","modified_gmt":"2011-01-28T00:48:13","slug":"hhs-waiver-gate-adds-another-500-exemptions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/8458\/hhs-waiver-gate-adds-another-500-exemptions\/","title":{"rendered":"HHS Waiver-gate Adds Another 500 Exemptions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Perhaps the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) should get credit for making the road to serfdom a little easier to travel.\u00a0 Beset by criticisms that ObamaCare grants HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2011\/01\/19\/newt-gingrich-health-care-dictatorship_n_810924.html \" target=\"_blank\">\u201cdictatorship\u201d status<\/a> with powers including on whom to bestow compliance waivers, HHS confirmed it handed out <a href=\"http:\/\/thehill.com\/blogs\/healthwatch\/health-reform-implementation\/140533-hhs-grants-new-reform-waivers-amid-heightened-scrutiny\" target=\"_blank\">500 new get-out-jail-free cards<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The purpose of the year-long waivers is to provide a compliance-free bridge for employers who would otherwise opt to pay the penalty for canceling out-of-compliance insurance plans.\u00a0 That bridge only extends to 2014.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2011\/01\/27\/will-the-two-waiver-a-day-rule-make-obamacare-obsolete\/\" target=\"_blank\">Alex Cortes at <em>The Daily Caller<\/em><\/a> notes that the waivers (averaging about two a day so far for 729 total) will only be granted until 2014 when ObamaCare\u2019s state-run insurance exchanges come online.\u00a0 Then, companies that stop offering insurance will pay the fine, but their employees will be able (i.e. forced) to use the exchanges or be fined themselves for ignoring the individual mandate.<\/p>\n<p>Until then, private sector employers and employees must go hat-in-hand begging for a waiver from Comrade Sebelius.\u00a0 Don\u2019t worry, says a HHS spokesman, the number of waiver requests denied is \u201cmore than a handful, but not a big number.\u201d\u00a0 How benevolent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Perhaps the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) should get credit for making the road to serfdom a little easier to travel.\u00a0 Beset by criticisms that ObamaCare grants HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius \u201cdictatorship\u201d status with powers including on whom to bestow compliance waivers, HHS confirmed it handed out 500 new get-out-jail-free cards. The purpose [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2337,12,186,311,476,35,1447,2338],"class_list":["post-8458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-department-of-health-and-human-services","tag-health-care","tag-hhs","tag-individual-mandate","tag-kathleen-sebelius","tag-obamacare","tag-reform","tag-waiver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8458"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8461,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8458\/revisions\/8461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}