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An Obama administration official on Wednesday confirmed that four states -- Florida, Tennessee, New Jersey and Ohio -- have been granted waivers from the regulatory requirements of the national health care law.

Lawmakers said that many other states, insurers and employers needed similar exemptions from some of the law’s requirements and would seek waivers if they knew of the option.

Steven B. Larsen, a top federal insurance regulator, said the waivers would allow many consumers to keep the coverage they had, a goal often espoused by President Obama.

Under the law and rules issued by the administration, health plans this year must generally provide at least $750,000 in coverage for essential benefits like hospital care, doctors’ services and prescription drugs. In states granted the waivers, many health plans with much lower annual limits on coverage may continue to operate.

“Unfortunately, limited benefit plans, or mini-med plans, are often the only type of insurance offered to some workers,” said Mr. Larsen, who is director of the federal Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight. It was to protect such coverage that the administration granted the waivers, he said.

To qualify for a waiver, a state, an employer or an insurer must show that compliance with the federal requirement would cause “a significant increase in premiums or a decrease in access to benefits.”

Mr. Larsen said the administration had granted temporary waivers to the four states and to more than 900 health plans covering 2.4 million people.

At a hearing of a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee, Republicans repeatedly asked: if the new law is so good, why have so many waivers been granted?

Representative Fred Upton, Republican of Michigan and chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said the waivers showed that the law, approved by Congress without any Republican votes, was “fundamentally flawed.” Without the waivers, Mr. Upton said, hundreds of thousands of people would have lost insurance or experienced a reduction in benefits.

The hearing gave Republicans their first opportunity to investigate the activities of the federal office that regulates private insurance and has dozens of other important duties under the new health law. In his 2012 budget, Mr. Obama requested more than $93 million for the office, which has 252 employees.

The insurance office originally reported directly to Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services. In early January, she moved it into the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, whose programs insure more than 100 million people.

House Republicans expressed concern that power over public and private health insurance programs was concentrated in one agency led by an official, Dr. Donald M. Berwick, who had not been confirmed by the Senate.


just more proof this  voided law needs to be done away with.

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It is pretty easy to get a waiver for the mini med plans.  These waivers are good for one year...but can be applied for annually until 2014.  The mini med plans are usually are for minimum wage earners and are charged usually in the area of $15-20/week.  For that they get limited coverage and a total annual limit of usually somewhere between $1500-2000.  The ACA had step up goals for each year up to 2014 to increase the amount of coverage to a more "regular" size plan.  But, it doesn't take much to see that there would be a large increase in premiums needed and until 2014 there is no company penalty nor subsidy.  The waiver is just there so the employees have something or the companies would just drop the option now.

If anything, the number of these waivers illustrate the huge number of underinsured people out there.  It's not only for those that are completely without insurance.

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bottom line, the 900+ waivers that have been approved, illustrate how costly this law will be for employers, and if not for those waivers, all these plans would have already been terminated. the two central pledges made by obama: that this bill would lower costs, and that you would be able to keep your healthcare if you like, have already been proven to be false. so what's the point? for christ sake, aside from reid, peloski, and the inner-circle, most the people who voted for this monstrosity didn't even know what was in it. there's a new analysis coming out every week revealing how obamacare will actually drive up healthcare costs, and how millions of people are at risk of losing their plans. they said that the more time passed, the more public opinion would sway in favor of the HC law, but the opposite has proven true. it's a nightmare, pure and simple.