Tag Archives: Obamacare

News

Senate Democrats block pro-small business amendment

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From The Hill. (H/T ECM, Marathon Pundit)

Excerpt:

The Senate on Monday night defeated two amendments designed to ease the tax-filing requirements for small businesses.

Senators voted 61-35 — six votes short of the necessary 67 — to reject an amendment by Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) that would strip a provision from the new healthcare law that requires businesses to report supply purchases of $600 or more with a single vendor. Likewise, the chamber voted 44-53 to defeat Sen. Max Baucus’ (D-Mont.) amendment, which would accomplish the same provision but is unpaid-for. That amendment also required 67 votes.

At issue is a section of the new healthcare law that requires businesses, charities and state and local governments to file 1099 reports for all transactions above $600 per year. The votes also represented a noteworthy showdown between Johanns and Baucus, who presented a similar idea but did not fund it through offset spending cuts.

Johanns said his approach was wiser since it was funded through unspent federal monies, directing the federal Office of Management and Budget to cut $39 billion in funds that would have been generated by the 1099 mandate.

The reporting requirement was introduced by the Obama administration.

If you force businesses to waste their time on paperwork, they have less to make money, and that means less money for hiring people.

News

Union that pushed for Obamacare drops medical coverage of children

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From the Wall Street Journal. (H/T Don Surber via ECM)

Excerpt:

One of the largest union-administered health-insurance funds in New York is dropping coverage for the children of more than 30,000 low-wage home attendants, union officials said. The union blamed financial problems it said were caused by the state’s health department and new national health-insurance requirements.

The fund is administered by 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union. Union officials said the state compelled the fund to start buying coverage from a third party, which increased premiums by 60%. State health officials denied forcing the union fund to make the switch, saying the fund had been struggling financially even before the switch to third-party coverage.

The fund informed its members late last month that their dependents will no longer be covered as of Jan. 1, 2011. Currently about 6,000 children are covered by the benefit fund, some until age 23.

No one ever said that union members were wizards at economics. At least this time they have to face their own ignorance.

Videos

Obama administration hands out 111 waivers from Obamacare

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This video is 2 minutes long. (H/T Wes Widner of Reason to Stand)

ECM sent me this article for those who cannot see the video.

Excerpt:

111 companies and organizations were granted waivers by Obama’s Dept. of Health and Human Services so that they could get out of having to comply with Obamacare and unions were particularly well rewarded by the HHS with these waivers.

Interestingly, there was no great announcement of these waivers issued to the press. The HHS buried the waiver announcement six layers deep on its webpage and posted them on Friday when they imagined no one would notice. It’s a typical Friday evening document dump so common when an administration wants to avoid the prying eyes of the people. So much for the “most transparent administration in history,” eh?

One thing is sure about these waivers. Obama rewarded his union pals quite well.

[…]Interestingly enough, Obama has waived the onerous Obamacare rules for quite a few healthcare providers, too. One wonders how good Obamacare could be if the rules are waived for actual healthcare providers?

That article has the full list of the 111 special interest groups who got waivers from Obamacare. The rest of the corporations who did not get waivers will just have to lose jobs, I guess. I guess those are the ones that didn’t support Obamacare.

Remember how unions were pushing for Obamacare? Well they got waivers from it, too.

Neil Simpson has a list of UNIONS that got exemptions:

  1. Service Employees Benefit Fund
  2. UFCW Allied Trade Health & Welfare Trust
  3. IBEW No.915
  4. Asbestos Workers Local 53 Welfare Fund
  5. Plumbers & Pipefitters Local 123 Welfare Fund
  6. UFCW Local 227
  7. UFCW Maximus Local 455
  8. Local 25 SEIU
  9. UFCW Local 1262
  10. Local 802 Musicians Health Fund
  11. Greater Metropolitan Hotel
  12. Local 17 Hospitality Benefit Fund
  13. I.U.P.A.T.
  14. Transport Workers
  15. UFT Welfare Fund
  16. UABT

That’s the list of KNOWN unions.

If Obamacare is so great, then why do all the Democrat special interest groups have to get exemptions from it? Could it be that Obamacare is a job-killing nightmare that not even Democrats want to be bound by?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96Uu_tI0hTw&feature=share