Side Effects: Number of Waivers Grows As a Result of Obamacare Authors’ Sloppy Handiwork

Kathryn Nix / December 10, 2010

Jamie Dupree recently reported for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the number of waivers granted by the Obama Administration for a certain provision in the new health care law has now reached 222. That’s double the amount of just three weeks ago.

The waivers apply to a provision of Obamacare prohibiting annual limits on health plans. For employers that currently provide their low-wage employees with so called “mini-med” health plans—which offer a limited benefit capped at a certain dollar amount—that provision presents a clear problem.

Since the new law doesn’t specify whether those plans count as major medical insurance or supplemental coverage, businesses have applied for waivers to ensure that the benefit limits on their mini-med plans aren’t increased or eliminated. Otherwise, employers would no longer be allowed to offer those plans, resulting in more than a million low-wage workers losing their current coverage. Without the option of a mini-med plan, most of those workers would likely go uninsured until 2014, when they would then be able to obtain a health plan paid for by new federal subsidies through the new state health exchanges. (more…)