Obama Continues to Exempt Unions from Obamacare

"Dr. Barack knows what's best for you"

Chicago IL, Jan 24, 2011. The total is now up to 45 labor unions that will be exempt from Obamacare.
  

These unions campaigned hard for President Barack Hussein Obama, D-Kenya, and supported his National Healthcare program.

But now they want their own employees to be allowed to "opt out" of the expensive and inefficient plan, and President Obama has agreed to allow them out.

However, the rest of us will still be stuck with the plan.

The latest to jump on the "Opt Out" bandwagon are three local chapters of  the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). These unions spent over $27 million of their membership's money campaigning for Barack Obama in the 2008 Presidential election. But now they have asked for, and received waivers from a provision of the Obamacare law.

One of the three SEIU chapters is Local 25 in Obama’s hometown of Chicago.

While these labor unions felt it was best for "everyone else" to be part of this massive and inefficient government plan, they also feel that the huge cost and additional red tape would be a bad thing for them.

Plus they don't like the fact that under Obamacare their liability towards their own employees healthcare expenses would be unlimited. They say they need these waivers to limit their own liability.

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.

SEIU campaign workers for Obama

HHS gave a waiver to Local 25 SEIU on  Oct. 1, 2010; to Local 1199 SEIU on Oct. 10, 2010; and to the SEIU Local 1 on Nov. 15, 2010.

So far, the Obama administration has issued waivers to 222 entities, including businesses, unions and charitable organizations.

Of that total, 45 were labor unions. And virtually all were heavy contributors, and provided volunteer workers for his 2008 election campaign.