Crossroads GPS’s New Target: Health Care Waivers

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

The right has found its newest political weapon against Obama and the Democrats, revving up its attacks on health care waivers even as accusations of political favoritism have proved spurious. Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies—the dark money sister group to Karl Rove’s American Crossroads—has released a new attack ad that accuses “union bosses”  of “shov[ing] health care down our throats,” then getting a free pass from the new rules imposed by the Affordable Care Act. In a spot more reminiscent of an action movie trailer than a political ad—complete with ominous music, rolling thunderclouds, and melodramatic cinematography—Crossroads GPS presents union leaders as thuggish, Scorcese-style villains who’ve made covert deals with the White House:

The ad points out that the Obama administration has granted 185 waivers to labor unions, accusing the White House of granting political favors to political allies. In an email accompanying the ad, Crossroads GPS rehashes accusations from prominent Republicans this week that Nancy Pelosi—as well as Harry Reid—were handing out political favors through the waiver process. “Earlier this week we discovered a large number of Obamacare waivers being granted in Nancy Pelosi’s congressional district, and in the state of Nevada, where the two top Democrats in Congress reside,” said Crossroads GPS communications director Jonathan Collegio. “The HHS [Health and Human Services] Department, which grants waivers, has yet to tell the public on what criteria they grant waivers, but appearances indicate that waivers are being given to the politically connected.”

In actuality, the Obama administration has very clearly laid out the criteria for granting waivers, as well as has detailed the individual companies and policyholders who’ve reveived them them, which the Department of Health and Human Services has  listed on its website. The waivers don’t exempt these companies from the entirety of federal health reform: rather, most grant a temporary reprieve from a provision that outlaws health insurance that provides less than $750,000 in annual benefits, giving them more time to adjust to the law.

As I reported this week, such waivers in Pelosi’s district came through a third-party company that applied for them en masse without any contact with or assistance from the minority leader’s office. Labor unions have asked for an exemption from complying to the new rules in part because collective bargaining agreements have restricted their ability to make sudden changes to their health policies. What’s more, some 94 percent of applicants have been granted waivers, ranging from big franchises like Ruby Tuesday’s to small local restaurants, dispelling the notion that unions and other Democratic allies have received special treatment.

To be sure, the White House could have done a better job explaining the waiver process. But like Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty, and Sarah Palin, Crossroads GPS has conveniently chosen to ignore this reality in the name of launching another fact-free political attack.

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate