Administration gets Oprah-like with PPACA waivers

Remember that episode of Oprah a few years ago where she famously gave the entire studio audience a car? "You get a car! You get a car! You, and you, and you and YOU get a car!"

That’s how the Obama administration is starting to look with its get-out-of-health-care-reform waivers.

At last count, the number of waivers given by the Health and Human Services Department to insurers and employers to escape annual benefit limits outlined in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act had ballooned to more than 700 in December, up from about 30 just two months prior.

Now, comes news that HHS has granted annual limit immunity to four entire states — Florida, New Jersey, Ohio and Tennessee — and that more states might win waivers as well.

What in the world is going on here? Why even bother touting the provision (which the president did when he was stumping in support of the law) if you’re going to just let insurers and employers backslide out of complying?

It’s too much for my Friday-fried mind to ponder, so I’ll let you take it away in the comments: Should the annual limit provision just get repealed, or is it okay for the administration to keep Oprah-fying it away with waivers?