The Obama Administration has unveiled dozens of new waivers to one provision of the Obama health law, but at the same, the feds have also finally detailed those waiver applications which were denied.
There were only 62 waivers included in the latest batch from the Obama Administration, raising the overall total to 1,433 - which allow companies to avoid the limit this year of $750,000 on the minimum coverage benefits in a health plan.
The new waivers were the mix that we've become used to reading about in recent months, with some labor unions getting waivers along with businesses from around the nation.
The largest waiver, covering 10,000 health insurance enrolles, went to the Uniformed Fire Officers Association Family Protection Plan in New York.
Other union waivers examples included the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 508 in Tucker, Georgia, another IBEW Local in Joliet Illinois and the Tennessee Valley Operating Engineers.
The business waivers were a wide variety of companies as well, like Meyer Tool in Cincinnati, Polar Cooling in Yuma, Arizona, Magnolia Metal of Omaha, Nebraska and Stew Leonard's, a small grocery store chain in New York and Connecticut.
Unlike the last group unveiled in May - which had several dozen in the San Francisco district of House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi - there was no waiver mania evident for any one area of the country this time around.
Because of some of that bad P.R. for these waivers, the Obama Administration also has announced that it will change the process for these exemptions to the minimum benefits payout provision.
Instead of issuing waivers about once every four to five weeks, the feds have said exisiting waiver recipients - and any groups looking for a waiver - must submit new applications by September 22, 2011.
That will mean no more monthly reports on waivers - instead it could be a much larger announcement of what unions and businesses get a break on this one provision in the Obama health law.
Finally, as for the rejection notices for those who were not granted waivers, there were 100 denials by the feds - though 31 of those were later approved after some modifications.
Most of those denials were unions seeking a waiver from the minimum benefit provisions, along with a handful of private businesses.
You can see the list of waiver denials at http://cciio.cms.gov/resources/files/denials_06172011_g.pdf
