One Year Later: The PAPERWORK Anniversary
Observers of etiquette will note that the traditional gift for a one-year anniversary is paper. On this one-year anniversary of the health care law, the Administration has certainly obliged on that count – much to Americans’ detriment. As we’ve previously reported, the Administration has released 6,578 pages of regulations and related notices in the Federal Register since the health care law passed last year. And because most of the law’s provisions don’t take effect until 2014, the regulations issued to date represent a mere down payment on the tens of thousands of pages of Washington mandates likely to be handed down over the coming years, even decades. Unfortunately, the impact on American businesses has already been felt; one owner of a chain of bowling alleys recently testified that the new regulations and mandates in the law will cost his firm over $26 million – meaning more than 500 jobs will NOT be created as a result of the law’s costs.
It’s not just paper that’s the problem – it’s the bureaucracy and confusion as well. As we’ve previously documented, the law creates 159 new bureaucracies, boards, and programs – which will produce more mandates for businesses to follow, and intrude on Americans’ personal relationships with their physicians. Just diagramming how the measure “works” has proved a nightmare, whether it comes to the whole law, or even a portion of it (like the bureaucratic hoops small businesses must go through to obtain tax credits). The Kaiser Family Foundation recently released a flowchart demonstrating where individuals might obtain coverage under the law – it’s confusing enough on its own, yet was issued by an organization that SUPPORTS the law.
Of course, there’s one area where the Administration has excelled at NOT producing paper – and that’s the backroom deals with special interest groups it wants kept secret. Earlier this month, the White House counsel sent a memo to House Republicans that outlining all Administration contacts with special interest groups would constitute a “vast and expansive undertaking.” In fact, today the outside group Crossroads GPS filed a lawsuit to force the Administration to release information regarding the 1,040 waivers the Administration has issued to unions and others.
It’s unfortunate that the promise of “an unmatched level of transparency, participation, and accountability” (or of negotiations on C-SPAN) has been met when it comes to disclosing documents about the Administration’s secret deals. It’s even more unfortunate that the documents the Administration HAS released over the past year have included damaging regulations and mandates that will harm the American economy and job-creating businesses.