20-Dec-2010 | By Shonda Werry, Contributing Editor
On December 1st, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation held a hearing entitled “Are Mini Med Policies Really Health Insurance?” The hearing provided a platform for Democrats to vilify corporations that provide limited-coverage health insurance policies. These so-called “mini-med” health insurance plans are an attractive way for employers to offer affordable coverage to low-wage workers who otherwise would not be able to afford a healthcare plan. Insurers estimate that close to one million Americans have mini-med health plans. While these plans do not cover major health costs, they do provide adequate medical, dental, and vision coverage. Unfortunately, Congressional Democrats overlooked the benefits of these mini-med plans when they wrote ObamaCare. The new healthcare law dictates that no health insurance policy can have an annual or lifetime limit on coverage, which effectively kills mini-med plans because of their limited coverage.
ObamaCare’s ban on annual and lifetime limits went into effect in September of 2010 and caused companies across the country to suspend their mini-med health plans. Because of ObamaCare, employers have lost the ability to provide practical healthcare coverage to low-wage workers. As Tom Schroder in Universal Orlando’s Public Relations office noted, “The new legislation [ObamaCare] would have left our part-time workers without their medical coverage."
When hundreds of companies across the country realized that their mini-med health insurance plans were under attack, they appealed to the Health and Human Services Department (HHS) to receive one-year waivers. In order to avoid a political disaster, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has been quickly approving waivers for more than 200 companies, unions, and other organizations, including McDonald’s and the Teamsters.
At the Senate Commerce Committee hearing, the Democrats questioned the Executive Vice-President of McDonald’s about his company’s policy of offering mini-med plans to hourly workers. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) railed against the injustice of giving low-wage workers plans that do not provide any catastrophic coverage. At one point in her theatrical questioning, she said her heart was “beating fast” because she was so incensed by the injustice of these plans.
Conspicuously absent from the hearing witness list was anyone representing the unions, which offer the same plans that McDonald’s and many other corporations provide. Sen. Boxer made her position clear that corporate mini-med plans were an affront to her “moral” code, but she failed to even mention the unions’ identical plans.
The debate surrounding mini-med plans raises several questions. First, is it better for some employees (and their families) to have the option to purchase limited-coverage plans than not to have any health insurance at all? The answer, it would seem, is yes, as even the Obama Administration has had to concede this point by offering waivers to extend these types of plans. The Administration is now in the uncomfortable position of having to explain why waivers are being granted to extend mini-med plans, which undermines their argument that ObamaCare would not cause anyone to lose his or her current health insurance coverage.
The second question that inevitably arises from this debate is: Do Democrats have any understanding of how to spur job creation? Unfortunately, the answer here is no. With the national unemployment rate hovering around 9.8%, the Democrats’ choice to harangue employers for their limited health insurance coverage is misguided. As Richard Floersch, the Executive Vice President of McDonald’s, noted at the hearing, corporations during a recession are under a great deal of pressure to provide competitive employee packages that will not cause the company to go bankrupt. Sen. Boxer and her liberal colleagues appear completely disconnected from the realities of the tough economic environment when they talk about the “immorality” of providing limited-coverage health insurance policies.
For conservatives, this hearing represented a wasted opportunity. Republican Senators missed a valuable opportunity to highlight the hypocrisy of HHS and the Obama Administration for quietly granting waivers to their union friends. The unions heavily lobbied Democrats to pass ObamaCare and are now seeking shelter from the consequences of this new law. Republicans in Congress should be holding Democrats accountable for their vote in favor of ObamaCare, and Democrats in Congress who voted for ObamaCare should have to explain why close to one million Americans are currently at risk of losing their current health insurance because of the new law.
Democrats in the Senate scheduled this hearing with the hopes of showing how corporations provide inadequate health coverage and why ObamaCare is therefore necessary. In reality, the hearing demonstrated what conservatives have argued all along – that ObamaCare would rob American families of their current health insurance plans. These mini-med waivers are the Achilles’ Heel of ObamaCare. The new Republican majority in the House would be wise to schedule hearings on this issue – and all of the other unintended consequences of ObamaCare.
***Shonda Werry is a former staffer at the Senate Republican Conference from 2004 to 2007, and has extensive public policy experience. She currently serves as the Executive Director of the American Healthcare Education Coalition.
