Citizens Against Government Waste(CAGW) has named Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius Porker of the Month for the ill-defined process by which HHS grants or denies waivers from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), also known as ObamaCare. After aggressively supporting PPACA prior to its passage in 2010, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) recently requested and received a waiver from HHS.
AARP is just one of the 1,372 unions, businesses, and insurers, representing approximately 3.1 million Americans, that have received waivers from PPACA’s onerous regulatory burdens.
Numerous CEOs and business owners have voiced their concerns over PPACA, stating that its provisions and mandates will drastically increase their costs and force them to lay off workers in order to remain solvent.
On May 17, the White House attempted to justify its capricious waiver-granting process, stating that HHS has the power to “issue temporary waivers from the annual limit provision of the law if it would disrupt access to existing insurance arrangements or adversely affect premiums, causing people to lose coverage,” which is precisely what PPACA was intended to prevent.
CAGW President Tom Schatz observed, “It is disgraceful that Secretary Sebelius is arbitrarily choosing when to enforce the mandates of a bill that just one year ago she claimed would be universally embraced by the American public… it has become clear that businesses are wary of what this bill will do to their bottom line, and that it will not control costs or improve healthcare outcomes.”
For the incoherent manner with which her department has doled out regulatory relief to businesses seeking a reprieve from the increasingly sickly PPACA, CAGW names HHS Secretary Sebelius the May 2011 Porker of the Month Read more about the Porker of the Month
No comments:
Post a Comment