Special Treatment for Congress
Starting in 2014, members of Congress and their staffs will have to get their health insurance through ObamaCare’s insurance marketplaces. But according to a regulation that the Obama administration’s Office of Personnel Management plans to announce on Friday and release next week, the federal government can continue to contribute toward the cost of their health plans…
The Obama administration’s compromise is to permit the federal government to contribute toward employee insurance on the exchanges, but to render those employees ineligible for any tax credits or subsidies.
“Members of Congress and their staff must go into the exchange,” said an administration official. “No ands, ifs, or buts. They will not be eligible in any way for subsidies or tax credits. But they don’t lose their current employer contribution.” (Ezra Klein)
If the employer’s contribution is tax free, federal employees will get a benefit that is illegal for every other employer in the country.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYdJqSG3K6c
When the president does it,
that means that it is not illegal
Congress creates these regulations and then exempts itself from the problems they create.
I does look like they took a step in the fair direction. They don’t have their completely separate plans anymore, although the funding situation is pretty convoluted.
It looks like just another way to get government buying everyone’s health care. I mean, these are some very wealthy people, but the government will pay for them?
The more I learn about ObamaCare the more I think that all of these things were intended to crumble down to a single payer system. That’s what the President wanted all along, why would he want his legacy to be a piece of legislation that doesn’t do the things that he believes in? There are just too many flaws in this system for it to seem reasonable that they want what ObamaCare is supposed to do.
Exactly, these are smart motivated people, I don’t think they’re incompetent.
I don’t think so, either.
This is an interesting development. This will ensure that there are some relatively healthy individuals (I understand that as a percentage they would be very, very insignificant) in the exchanges with virtually unlimited funding. But, it also works as solid propaganda: “Look, America’s leaders are happy with it, you should be too!” Both of these lend to filling out the top end of spectrum for the exchanges to subsidize the bottom end.
The funding that you mentioned could be important. Rarely does the government let unlimited funding go by without taking advantage of it. The more government funding that we see in the exchanges, the easier it is to expand.
Love the pairing of Frost/Nixon with “If the employer’s contribution is tax free, federal employees will get a benefit that is illegal for every other employer in the country.”
The country was shocked by Nixon’s actions. If he was around today he probably wouldn’t even feel a dip in approval rating. We expect that kind of thing nowadays.
Probably true, although I think that it has more to do with more widely available information than cultural degradation. American Presidents had been doing worse than Nixon for a long time before this, the news just wasn’t as widely disseminated.
Power corrupts, I think we’d be shocked by a lot of things that were done.
True
Only the federal government could enact unpopular legislation and somehow exempt congress… classic
This looks like another case of the Administration nullifying parts of the law that are recognized as inconvenient in hindsight, but in such a way that it is unlikely that anyone will bring suit against the Administration.
With respect to the employer mandate, for example, employers are obviously happy that the boot is off the neck for at least one year. The delay does not cost anyone their subsidies in the exchange. So nobody likely has standing to ask the court to enforce the mandate. Also, because the anti-Obamacare factions are opposed to the mandate, it would be self-defeating for them to do so.
With respect to this apparently illegal regulation, the incentives are similar. Obamacare’s opponents are right to be upset at this development, but it would not do any good to force the Administration to use after-tax dollars instead of pre-tax dollars to pay for the exchange subsidies. After all, it’s all the taxpayers’ money!
John: the point is that the employees should be taxed on the money they get from the federal government. The feds do not have the authority to make tax free transfers.
I’m not saying they have the authority. I’m just saying that it would not serve the anti-Obamacare activists’ interests to force the Administration to make the transfers taxable, because then the Administration and Congress would increase the salaries of the staff to compensate. Taxpayers pay the price.
Even the MSNBC talking heads are having a heyday with this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hvof-8vMqCE
I believe that the existing Federal employee plan is community rated. No age rating, gender rating, smoker rating, etc. If a current employee chooses a plan that costs $1,000 a month, the government pays $750 and that’s all.
If the federal employees do go onto the Exchanges, their premium will vary a lot.
How will the government know how much to pay on their behalf? Sounds like an administrative nightmare coming up.
If federal employees must soon purchase from the Obamacare exchanges, then what’s to become of the FEHB? It’s my understanding that the FEHBP is primarily consumer driven w HSA’s & many nationwide plans to choose from and wide provider network access (total opposite direction of Obamacare): so how are we expected to believe that fed employees will accept a downgrade to Obamacare? I gotta believe there are blueprints on the Capitol Hill desks of Harry & Nancy & Johnny Boehner too that’s going to “fix” this problem, so they will be allowed to keep their Cadillac plans. Congress has managed to rig just about every aspect of government to benefit themselves, so it’s hard for me to imagine that they will obediently go down with the rest of us.