JimBowie1958
Old Fogey
- Sep 25, 2011
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And the movement is catching on across the country.
The Canary in the Coal Mine | The Weekly Standard
The Canary in the Coal Mine | The Weekly Standard
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By "exempted" you mean a one-year delay requested by businesses?
By "exempted" you mean a one-year delay requested by businesses?
By "exempted" you mean a one-year delay requested by businesses?
I think he means Congressmen.
I think Congressmen, and staff, should be on commission, like salemen, with compensation pegged to the performance of the economy. Perhaps a 50:50 mix of national and their district. And they don't get to resign office.
Congress doesn't calculate the unemployment rate.Yeah, that would be a great idea. But I wouldn't base it on the performance on the economy, because they would simply lie about that like they are lying about the unemployment rate.
I agree whole heartedly that everybody should be in ACA and none should not be in ACA.
It already is law - it's in the ACA.
Not only are members of Congress not "exempt", they're the only people in the country who are forced by the law itself to buy their insurance on the exchanges.
Congress doesn't calculate the unemployment rate.Yeah, that would be a great idea. But I wouldn't base it on the performance on the economy, because they would simply lie about that like they are lying about the unemployment rate.
I agree whole heartedly that everybody should be in ACA and none should not be in ACA.
It already is law - it's in the ACA.
Not only are members of Congress not "exempt", they're the only people in the country who are forced by the law itself to buy their insurance on the exchanges.
The Affordable Care Act requires Members of Congress and their staffs to participate in its insurance exchanges, in order to gain first-hand experience with what they're about to impose on their constituents. ...
Harry Reid revised the Grassley amendment when he rammed through his infamous ObamaCare bill that no one had read for a vote on Christmas eve. But he neglected to include language about what would happen to the premium contributions that the government makes for its employees. Whether it was intentional or not, the fairest reading of the statute as written is that if Democrats thought somebody earning $174,000 didn't deserve an exchange subsidy, then this person doesn't get a subsidy merely because he happens to work in Congress.
But the statute means that about 11,000 Members and Congressional staff will lose the generous coverage they now have as part of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP). Instead they will get the lower-quality, low-choice "Medicaid Plus" of the exchanges. The Membersannual salary: $174,000and their better paid aides also wouldn't qualify for ObamaCare subsidies. That means they could be exposed to thousands of dollars a year in out-of-pocket insurance costs.
The result was a full wig out on Capitol Hill, with Members of both parties fretting about "brain drain" as staff face higher health-care costs. Democrats in particular begged the White House for help, claiming the Reid language was merely an unintentional mistake. President Obama told Democrats in a closed-door meeting last week that he would personally moonlight as HR manager and resolve the issue.
And now the White House is suspending the law to create a double standard. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that runs federal benefits will release regulatory details this week, but leaks to the press suggest that Congress will receive extra payments based on the FEHBP defined-contribution formula, which covers about 75% of the cost of the average insurance plan.....
In any case the carve-out for Congress creates a two-tier exchange system, one for the great unwashed and another for the politically connected.
This latest White House night at the improv is also illegal. OPM has no authority to pay for insurance plans that lack FEHBP contracts, nor does the Affordable Care Act permit either exchange contributions or a unilateral bump in congressional pay in return for less overall compensation. Those things require appropriations bills passed by Congress and signed by the President.
But the White House rejected a legislative fix because Republicans might insist on other changes, and Mr. Obama feared that Democrats would go along because they're looking out for number one. So the White House is once again rewriting the law unilaterally, much as it did by suspending ObamaCare's employer mandate for a year. For this White House, the law it wrote is a mere suggestion.
The lesson for Americans is that Democrats who passed ObamaCare didn't even understand what they were doing to themselves, much less to everyone else.
Republican Sen. David Vitter is slamming his fellow lawmakers for “lying” and telling their constituents that there is no such thing as an Obamacare exemption for members of Congress and their staff members.
“Some are lying, trying to mislead the public about the Obamacare exemption for Congress,” Republican Sen. David Vitter said in a statement Thursday. “President Obama recently issued a special rule for Congress and congressional staff to get a special subsidy to purchase health insurance on the Obamacare Exchange unavailable to every other American at similar income levels. That’s an exemption, plain and simple.”
Mr. Edwards and his pal are members of Samaritan Ministries International, a health care sharing ministry in which Christian members pay for each others health care needs through monthly shares.
My doctors are very impressed by it, said Mr. Edwards, a 59-year-old from Falls Church who says Samaritan Ministries helped him pay for a biopsy and helped cover treatment for his wife, Susan, when she injured her back.
While most Americans next year will have to grapple with the intricacies of President Obamas health law and the individual mandate requiring residents to have health insurance, Mr. Edwards and more than 160,000 others who use health-sharing ministries will be exempt.
<SNIP>
Samaritan and other sharing ministries employ the same kind of concept voluntarily sharing a burden with like-minded religious people.
Guided by Christian principles, members of the ministries promise to live a healthy lifestyle no illegal drugs, alcohol only in moderation and no sex outside marriage. In doing so, they say, members reap the benefit of monthly payments that are far lower than insurance premiums and a community-driven system that replaces corporate red tape with prayer cards.
Unlike insurance, sharing ministries do not pool health risks or face state regulations mandating reserves of capital or surpluses. A local pastor must sign off on membership at Samaritan, and members say they like knowing their dollars will not subsidize practices to which they object, such as abortion.
When the health care law was being written, Mr. Lansberry of Samaritan said House lawmakers werent inclined to grant the ministries an exemption, but the bills authors in the Senate were willing to accommodate.
When that passed, Mr. Lansberry said of the upper chambers bill, there was a little bit of a sigh of relief.
He said that despite general concerns about Mr. Obamas law as a government intrusion into health care, they do appreciate their self-described island of freedom.
Read more: 'Obamacare' alternative: Exemptions offer way out; health-sharing ministries among excused - Washington Times
PolitiFact first examined the claim that members of Congress are exempt from the provisions of the Affordable Care Act in 2009, when the legislation was still under consideration in Congress.
We rated it False. That claim was based on the assumption that the health care reform plan would have sent everyone -- except Congress -- into a new "public option" federal insurance plan. It would not have.
Q: Is it true that there are bills in Congress that would exempt members and their staffs and families from buying into “Obamacare”?
A: No. Congress members and staffers will be required to buy insurance through the exchanges on Jan. 1.
FULL QUESTION
Is it true that there are bills in the House and Senate that will exempt members and their staff and families from buying into Obamacare?
FULL ANSWER
Several readers have asked us about Congress attempting to exempt itself from the requirements of the Affordable Care Act. A few said that a Facebook post claimed that President Barack Obama, Sen. Harry Reid and Democrats in Congress were trying to “get themselves exempted from Obamacare,” in the words of one reader.
But there is no bill in Congress calling for an exemption from the health care law. In fact, members of Congress and their staffs face additional requirements that most Americans don’t have to meet.
Last week, the Office of Personnel Management (sort of the HR department for the federal government) released its fix for the glitch in which congressional staff were in danger of losing their the employer contribution part of their health insurance. That would have meant that some staff couldn't afford to be insured at all. Under the fix, staffers will still purchase health insurance on the exchange, and will keep the employer subsidy (but not get the tax credit, or Obamacare subsidy).
Immediately, the Right screeched that Congress made itself exempt. FreedomWorks pretends like staff keeping their subsidies is an entirely new thing and that this is congress exempting itself from the law. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) called it an "outrageous exemption for Congress."
As Jonathon Cohn points out, yes congressional employees are treated differently under the law. But it's because .... blah, blah, blah
Congress and an Exemption from ?Obamacare??
Q: Is it true that there are bills in Congress that would exempt members and their staffs and families from buying into Obamacare?
A: No. Congress members and staffers will be required to buy insurance through the exchanges on Jan. 1.
FULL QUESTION
Is it true that there are bills in the House and Senate that will exempt members and their staff and families from buying into Obamacare?
FULL ANSWER
Several readers have asked us about Congress attempting to exempt itself from the requirements of the Affordable Care Act. A few said that a Facebook post claimed that President Barack Obama, Sen. Harry Reid and Democrats in Congress were trying to get themselves exempted from Obamacare, in the words of one reader.
But there is no bill in Congress calling for an exemption from the health care law. In fact, members of Congress and their staffs face additional requirements that most Americans dont have to meet.
Are they exempting themselves from the financial burden of the law by subsidizing their costs through tax payer money? Fuck yes, they are, and this so-called 'fact check' org needs to get off the dope.
The ruling by the OPM means that the government will contribute to those plans — just as it does now, and just as most private-sector employees have their health insurance paid for, in part or in whole, by their employers.