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From FactCheck.Org (2013):
If you are aware of something different, do share. What I'm aware of is below. Like much about the ACA, it's not nearly so cut and dried as it seems.
However, do not contribute the following:
Rather than risk Congress reopening the ACA to restore their lost health coverage -- because who knows what other changes Congress might make in the process -- the administration simply pretended that that part of the law didn't exist. The Office of Personnel Management announced that members of Congress and their staffs could remain in the FEHBP until the ACA's Exchanges launched in 2014. The president thus stuck to his promise, if you like your health plan, and you're a member of Congress, you can keep your health plan.
That still didn't solve the president's problems, however. The ACA says that as of 2014, the only coverage the federal government can offer members of Congress in connection with their employment is coverage created under the Act. In effect, that means Exchange coverage. But the law still cut off that $10,000 "employer contribution" to their health benefits. According to Politico, "OPM initially ruled that lawmakers and staffers couldn’t receive the subsidies once they went into the exchanges." After the president intervened, OPM just ignored that part of the law and started issuing (illegal) subsidies on the order of $10,000 to hundreds of individual members of Congress and thousands of individual congressional staffers.
So there is another "exemption" if you want. Congress is exempt from the prohibition on government employees receiving subsidies for their health insurance purchased via an O-care exchange. Even so, it's not an exemption from Obama
Offering these subsidies to members of Congress violates the ACA in at least one other way as well. The ACA prohibits employers from making contributions to their employees' coverage through the Exchanges that serve individuals. (The law's technical term for them is "American Health Benefits Exchanges.") So the administration let members of Congress enroll through the ACA's Small Business Health Options Program Exchanges, or "SHOP Exchanges," where employers can make contributions to cover their workers' premiums. The problem here is that the "S" in "SHOP" stands for small business -- i.e., firms with fewer than 50 employees. Yet the OPM and the D.C. SHOP Exchange, where thousands of members of Congress, their staffs and their dependents have purchased coverage, are pretending that Congress is a small business with fewer than 50 employees.
Committee chairman David Vitter (R-LA) has been waging a lonely battle to end these bribes. After suffering numerous setbacks, Vitter now seeks to shine sunlight on how these bribes happened. He wants to subpoena documents relating to OPM's claim that Congress is a small business. You would think Republicans, who outnumber Democrats on the committee 10-9, would gladly join Vitter in exposing the administration's malfeasance. Ending Congress' special ObamaCare exemption -- i.e., the bribes individual members of Congress and their staffs are receiving not to reopen ObamaCare -- polls off the charts. More than 90 percent of voters believe this exemption is unfair. I mean, c'mon. The rap against congressional Republicans is that they are hyper-partisans who will do anything to take down President Obama and/or ObamaCare. You would think this would be too good an opportunity for those rabid partisans to miss.
You would be wrong.
In April 2015, five committee Republicans voted with all nine Democrats to quash Vitter's subpoena effort. Someone should ask the 14 senators who voted to keep the truth hidden whether they are personally receiving one of those illegal subsidies, and if so, the precise dollar amount. Of course, if those subsidies disappeared, Congress would reinstate them so quickly your head would spin. Congress would even provide back pay that would make members and staff completely whole.
For all the talk in Washington about the corrupting influence of money in politics, remarkably few people seem to care that the executive branch is promiscuously issuing illegal taxpayer subsidies that not only personally benefit members of Congress but that also directly affect how members of Congress vote. Vitter deserves credit for taking the lead in trying to expose and put an end to those bribes. The framers of the Constitution did an admirable job, but sometimes the checks and balances they created are not enough to prevent the corruption of one branch of government by another.
Source 1
Source 2
Source 3: FactCheck.org (see link at the start of this OP)
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, [2013].
A: No. Congress members and staffers will be required to buy insurance through the exchanges on Jan. 1, [2013].
If you are aware of something different, do share. What I'm aware of is below. Like much about the ACA, it's not nearly so cut and dried as it seems.
However, do not contribute the following:
- Washington Times article: "Congress’ Obamacare self-exemption OK, judge rules" - The headline and the article content are not at what it looks like it would be from the headline.
Rather than risk Congress reopening the ACA to restore their lost health coverage -- because who knows what other changes Congress might make in the process -- the administration simply pretended that that part of the law didn't exist. The Office of Personnel Management announced that members of Congress and their staffs could remain in the FEHBP until the ACA's Exchanges launched in 2014. The president thus stuck to his promise, if you like your health plan, and you're a member of Congress, you can keep your health plan.
That still didn't solve the president's problems, however. The ACA says that as of 2014, the only coverage the federal government can offer members of Congress in connection with their employment is coverage created under the Act. In effect, that means Exchange coverage. But the law still cut off that $10,000 "employer contribution" to their health benefits. According to Politico, "OPM initially ruled that lawmakers and staffers couldn’t receive the subsidies once they went into the exchanges." After the president intervened, OPM just ignored that part of the law and started issuing (illegal) subsidies on the order of $10,000 to hundreds of individual members of Congress and thousands of individual congressional staffers.
So there is another "exemption" if you want. Congress is exempt from the prohibition on government employees receiving subsidies for their health insurance purchased via an O-care exchange. Even so, it's not an exemption from Obama
Offering these subsidies to members of Congress violates the ACA in at least one other way as well. The ACA prohibits employers from making contributions to their employees' coverage through the Exchanges that serve individuals. (The law's technical term for them is "American Health Benefits Exchanges.") So the administration let members of Congress enroll through the ACA's Small Business Health Options Program Exchanges, or "SHOP Exchanges," where employers can make contributions to cover their workers' premiums. The problem here is that the "S" in "SHOP" stands for small business -- i.e., firms with fewer than 50 employees. Yet the OPM and the D.C. SHOP Exchange, where thousands of members of Congress, their staffs and their dependents have purchased coverage, are pretending that Congress is a small business with fewer than 50 employees.
Committee chairman David Vitter (R-LA) has been waging a lonely battle to end these bribes. After suffering numerous setbacks, Vitter now seeks to shine sunlight on how these bribes happened. He wants to subpoena documents relating to OPM's claim that Congress is a small business. You would think Republicans, who outnumber Democrats on the committee 10-9, would gladly join Vitter in exposing the administration's malfeasance. Ending Congress' special ObamaCare exemption -- i.e., the bribes individual members of Congress and their staffs are receiving not to reopen ObamaCare -- polls off the charts. More than 90 percent of voters believe this exemption is unfair. I mean, c'mon. The rap against congressional Republicans is that they are hyper-partisans who will do anything to take down President Obama and/or ObamaCare. You would think this would be too good an opportunity for those rabid partisans to miss.
You would be wrong.
In April 2015, five committee Republicans voted with all nine Democrats to quash Vitter's subpoena effort. Someone should ask the 14 senators who voted to keep the truth hidden whether they are personally receiving one of those illegal subsidies, and if so, the precise dollar amount. Of course, if those subsidies disappeared, Congress would reinstate them so quickly your head would spin. Congress would even provide back pay that would make members and staff completely whole.
For all the talk in Washington about the corrupting influence of money in politics, remarkably few people seem to care that the executive branch is promiscuously issuing illegal taxpayer subsidies that not only personally benefit members of Congress but that also directly affect how members of Congress vote. Vitter deserves credit for taking the lead in trying to expose and put an end to those bribes. The framers of the Constitution did an admirable job, but sometimes the checks and balances they created are not enough to prevent the corruption of one branch of government by another.
Source 1
Source 2
Source 3: FactCheck.org (see link at the start of this OP)
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