Rove's Crossroads suing HHS over health reform waivers

This is rich.administration over transparency, of all things.

Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies (Crossroads GPS) says the suit was prompted by the [Department of Health and Human Service's] failure to respond to a Jan. 7 request for documents under the Freedom of Information Act.

The organization is seeking "any and all memoranda, guidance, directives, instructions and other documents … relating to the criteria to be applied by HHS in deciding whether to grant or deny applications for [a] waiver."

"Until President Obama is willing to grant the entire country a waiver from ObamaCare," Crossroads GPS President Steven Law said in a statement, "his administration needs to come clean on how they decide who wins and loses in the waiver lottery."

Conservatives have been making hay over waivers granted by HHS, temporary exemptions from the law's $750,000 minimum annual cap on benefits for 2011. According to HHS, "The department has given the Energy and Commerce Committee 25 boxes of documents for its hearing on the issue; the department has also published regulations and three guidance documents about the waivers, as well as a regularly updated list of approved waivers." In other words, who got the waivers.

So it's not really any big secret. For her part, HHS Secretary Sebelius says the suit is groundless and that "Nothing is further from the truth," regarding the Right's accusations that the administration is granting waivers as political favors.

Rove's group is pushing a politicized nuisance suit. What a shock.