Case in Point!

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Remember back when Obama was ramming his ill-conceived healthcare plan through congress and our senators and representatives were voting on things that they hadn't even read....and people like me and thousands of others were trying to point out the empty promises and the unintended consequences of saying "Obamacare won't affect anyone's current coverage"?

Well, a few weeks ago, Obama and company realized just one of the many flaws of imposing a socialized medicine program on a free-market society. It looks like even the White House had an epiphany on this topic. It might have gone something like this:

Oops! If we impose Obamacare on fast-food chains, the cost of a 95 cent hamburger is going to triple; if hamburgers prices triple, people will stop buying them; if people stop buying them, the franchise will close; if franchises close, people lose the jobs and health care they currently have; if people lose the jobs and healthcare they have, they go on the government dole; if they go on the government dole, the government gets even "more broke" than they are right now. Whose idea was this anyway? We'd better make an exception to our own rule before the November election or the voters will know we're idiots who ram-rod whatever Obama says even if we don't know the consequences of our actions.

Here's how the article read in USA Today:
McDonald's, 29 other firms get health care coverage waivers

Thirty companies and organizations, including McDonald's (MCD) and Jack in the Box (JACK), won't be required to raise the minimum annual benefit included in low-cost health plans, which are often used to cover part-time or low-wage employees.

The Department of Health and Human Services, which provided a list of exemptions, said it granted waivers in late September so workers with such plans wouldn't lose coverage from employers who might choose instead to drop health insurance altogether.

Without waivers, companies would have had to provide a minimum of $750,000 in coverage next year, increasing to $1.25 million in 2012, $2 million in 2013 and unlimited in 2014.

"The big political issue here is the president promised no one would lose the coverage they've got," says Robert Laszewski, chief executive officer of consulting company Health Policy and Strategy Associates. "Here we are a month before the election, and these companies represent 1 million people who would lose the coverage they've got."

The United Agricultural Benefit Trust, the California-based cooperative that offers coverage to farm workers, was allowed to exempt 17,347 people. San Diego-based Jack in the Box's waiver is for 1,130 workers, while McDonald's asked to excuse 115,000.

...McDonald's, which offers the programs as a way to cover part-time employees, told the Obama administration it might re-evaluate the plans unless it got a waiver.