Corporate Pill Pusher Tantrum

As a former legal pill pusher, one might expect I would be putting my size 9’s on a soap box about access to birth control this week.  Not so.  Much has already been written from real experts who write more eloquently.   Further, the loyal Twitterati have born the brunt of my rage admirably on the subject while the insanity continues. 

Today, Ms. Underpants is putting on her big girl drawers and addressing the irony and sick hilarity of a company in the healthcare industry asking for a waiver and extended timeline to comply with The Affordable Care Act. (That's Obamacare for you Dittoheads)  Said BigPharmaRetail asked for a waiver of:

“..the requirement to provide coverage for certain key benefit of at least $1,250,00 this year.  Your health care plan has stated that meeting this minimum dollar limit this year would result in a significant increase in your premiums or a significant decrease in your access to benefits.  Based on this representation, the U.S. Department of Heath and Human Services has waived the requirement for your plan until Feb. 16 2013.”

In short, the “plan” this ALEC-loving BigPharmaRetail employer offered through Aetna “does not meet the minimum standards…due to its annual limits.”

Once upon a time I worked as a Pharmacy Tech for the big not-Walgreens pharmacy.  The one popular “out East.”  I planned to use this experience to write a book about pill poppin’ in suburbia but found the whole experience too depressing.  In full disclosure, I don't "take" anything aside of some vitamins, herbs, and aspirin.  

Luckily, I have not been a part of their ridiculous red and white dysfunctional family for some time, though I still receive mail from their benefits department – clearly their HR system is akin to their other technology systems – stuck in the 1990’s.   Their compliance with FLSA and systematically removing expired drugs from the pharmacy shelves was stuck in the 90's, too; but that’s a rant for another day.

According to Yahoo Finance and SEC filings, these same folks posted 20M in profit as of 12/31/2011, the stock is over $45/share and a few of their Officers and Directors sold shares earlier this week to the tune of nearly $40M.  They are, however, too “cash strapped” to comply with The ACA. (They sure as hell weren't paying premium increases - they were passing them down to minimum wage employees) 

Am I missing something?  Doesn't the big red and white retail pharmacy on every corner stand to make bank as they will directly benefit from the ACA …being a pharmacy and all…with a mail order drug thingy, too. 

This letter implied to me that apparently if one is big enough and has enough “friends” one can have an Obamacare tantrum, stomp one’s collective corporate feet and receive the HHS equivalent of a “time out.”

Fan-fucking-tastic.

George Orwell could not have envisioned this.

Please let Ms. Underpants know if you, too, are in receipt of information alerting you to the fact that YOUR health care plan did not pass the HHS “stress test” for The Affordable Care Act.

Please remind me again why single-payer is not the real “Plan B.”

I would ask the HHS "givers of time outs" to consult Yahoo Finance before granting waivers, but that's just me.