The Obama administration said Wednesday that it had granted broad waivers to four states allowing health insurance companies to continue offering less generous benefits than they would otherwise be required to provide this year under the new federal health care law. The states are Florida, New Jersey, Ohio and Tennessee, the administration told Congress.Lawmakers said that many other states, insurers and employers needed similar exemptions from some of the law’s requirements and would seek waivers if they knew of the option.
Under the law and rules issued by the administration, health plans this year must generally provide at least $750,000 in coverage for essential benefits like hospital care, doctors’ services and prescription drugs. In states granted the waivers, many health plans with much lower annual limits on coverage may continue to operate.
“Unfortunately, limited benefit plans, or mini-med plans, are often the only type of insurance offered to some workers,” said Mr. Larsen, who is director of the federal Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight. It was to protect such coverage that the administration granted the waivers, he said.
To qualify for a waiver, a state, an employer or an insurer must show that compliance with the federal requirement would cause “a significant increase in premiums or a decrease in access to benefits.”
At this rate, why not just adopt the DeMint plan?
UPDATE: The lead attorney on the (thus far successful) multi-state legal challenge to Obamacare is facing a crippling cyber attack from Left-wing hackers:
While politicians are still talking about restoring civility, liberal thugs are waging an all out attack on the website of David Rivkin, lead counsel in the multi-state lawsuit against Obamacare, rather than engage in a civilized debate that they can’t win. And what do the ACLU and other left-leaning civil rights groups have to say about these attempts to silence a leading voice for freedom and liberty? Not a thing.
One week after federal district judge Roger Vinson held that the mandate was unconstitutional and struck down the entire law, Rivkin’s website came under attack by a highly organized group of cyber-terrorists seeking to silence him and knock his views off the Internet.
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