It’s been one year since President Obama signed the “Affordable Care Act” into law, and the legislation remains just as controversial as ever.  Adding fuel to the ongoing debate is a growing number of waivers being granted that exempt certain employers and labor unions from a requirement to provide a minimum of $750k in coverage to anyone covered by their health insurance plans.  As of last week such waivers have been granted to over 1,000 health plans, covering millions. 

The fact that these waivers have had to be granted in the first place says a lot about the bill’s failures. But, to make matters worse, many of these waivers have gone to business and labor unions that worked hard to get the Affordable Care Act passed in the first place. The administration is rewarding these entities for their hard work getting the law passed by allowing them to ignore it altogether. This is not how health care is supposed to work in the United States.

Reportedly, the Obama Administration expected their issuance of waivers to be well received, thinking it would show flexibility in the plan.  But the thousands of businesses who have not been lucky enough to get waivers understand that they have gotten a raw deal and that waivers should never have been necessary in the first place. They cite the waivers as reason for replacing the law with legislation that will help American patients instead of hurting them.

Ultimately, the waivers are an indicator that the Administration recognizes that implementation of the law is a burden for the very businesses and labor unions it was intended to help.  More importantly, because the waivers are only temporary they only serve to delay the pain for some and give them a false sense of security.  At some point nearer to 2014, the waivers will likely end and the full impact of the law will become clear to all and at that point it will be too late.  The only sensible thing to do is to revisit the issue of healthcare in a bi-partisan way that can build on the system we currently have without destroying it in the process.