Waivers help hundreds of companies unable to handle removal of coverage limits in the federal reform package.

Washington, Feb 7 -

More than 700 waivers given to organizations exempting them from baseline provisions of the federal health-care reform package are in the crosshairs of a subcommittee chaired by U.S. Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla.

Last month Stearns co-signed a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius requesting information about the waivers, including a list of all organizations that have requested them, "all documents" related to granting them and communications from the departments discussing them.

"I think that the American people deserve to know why waivers were granted and for whom," Stearns wrote in a statement.

He is chairman of an investigative subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is heading the waiver investigation. He penned the letter to Sebelius with the committee's chairman, U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich.

Last week Sebelius' department doled out an additional 500 waivers, upping the total number of employees affected from 1.5 million to 2.1 million. Some of the higher-profile companies now exempt include Universal Orlando, Waffle House and Jack in the Box.

Republicans, including Stearns, say the fact that so many companies requested waivers is an indication of the reform plan's flaws.

It "means that this law is leading to significant increases in premiums and significant decreases in access to benefits," he wrote in a statement.

A request for comment from the Department of Health and Human Services was not returned Friday.

In a December blog post, the White House defended waivers. It said they will allow low-income workers to keep their insurance as cheaper policies that include annual coverage limits - known as mini-meds - are phased out.

"The phase-out of annual limits this year would cause mini-med premiums to rise by more than 200 percent, forcing employers to drop coverage and sending many low-wage workers to purchase insurance on the more expensive individual insurance market," the post read.

The coverage limits are going to be eliminated by 2014 and replaced with health-care exchanges. The phase-out begins this year.

The waivers are designed to help companies that would not be able to handle the removal of the coverage limits. The White House termed them "extreme cases."

Stearns said that for now his investigation is casting a wide net.

"We don't know if anyone is getting special treatment - the Democrats would never hold a hearing or do oversight of the health-care law," he wrote. "Our investigation isn't after a specific target, it's just doing the basic work Democrats refused to do for political purposes."

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