http://conservativeactionalerts.com/blog_post/show/1668The Obama administration has allowed 222 employers, insurers and unions to opt out of a key mandate in the new health care law – a number that has grown exponentially in the past two months.
Employers like McDonald's, Waffle House and Universal Orlando are among the companies that have received a one-year waiver, allowing them to maintain minimal coverage below the new law's standards.
The list has grown significantly since October, when 30 companies had waivers, and has doubled since early November. Taken together, the companies cover more than 1.5 million people, including 34 unions with more than 140,000 members.
Other companies and unions that received waivers include Ruby Tuesday, AMB Bowling Worldwide, and the local chapters of the International Brotherhood of Trade Unions Health and Welfare Fund and the Teamsters
Although the waivers are to last one year, groups can apply to extend them until 2014.
Many unions had fought hard for health reform and were dismissive about fears that companies would simply dump their coverage if health reform passed. But unions are now demanding to be exempt from the new law.
Many of the nation’s biggest unions also had backed President Obama's campaign. Early in the health-reform debate, unions won exemptions to the tax on so-called Cadillac health-care plans -- those with the most generous benefits.
Workers affected by these exemptions are now left to wonder whether their low-cost health-insurance plans will continue to provide the coverage they need.
Topic: Unions Pushed ObamaCare, Now Want to Opt-out (Read 832 times)