Report: Lawmakers to Subsidize Own Obamacare Premiums with Tax Dollars

[longknife]

I don't give a damn where this story comes from! It's still sickening and another example of what's so wrong in Washington. Read more @ Report: Lawmakers to Subsidize Own Obamacare Premiums with Tax Dollars

 

[Claudette]

I don't give a damn where this story comes from! It's still sickening and another example of what's so wrong in Washington. Read more @ Report: Lawmakers to Subsidize Own Obamacare Premiums with Tax Dollars

I agree.

Perhaps the dumb ***** should have read it before they passed that POS bill.

I wonder just how many assholes we taxpayers will be forced to Subsidize??

Unions, Congress and the staffers are all opting out of the ACA. Should tell everyone everything they need to know about this POS bill. Good Gawd.

 

[g5000]

I don't give a damn where this story comes from! It's still sickening and another example of what's so wrong in Washington. Read more @ Report: Lawmakers to Subsidize Own Obamacare Premiums with Tax Dollars

Federal employees receive their health insurance through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. They have been for a long time.

The FEHBP premiums are employer-subsidized, just like any other employer-sponsored health insurance is. It just so happens their employer is the American taxpayer. Their wages come from tax dollars, as does their employer's share of their health insurance premiums.

Understand? Tax dollars have been going to them for decades as part of their wages and benefits.

The problem is that there is no provision in ObamaCare for someone who switches from FEHBP to an insurance exchange to receive the same premium subsidy they have been receiving for decades. They only get a subsidy if their income is less than 400 percent of the federal poverty level. And for a lot of them, that is not the case.

So they are not attempting to add some new cost to taxpayers. They are trying to maintain the same thing they have always gotten.

 

[g5000]

A not so funny thing:

If you currently receive your health insurance through your employer, your employer is probably paying up to 90 percent of your premiums. That's a huge benefit you are getting, and it is not taxed. So you are receiving about $12,000 tax free above your income.

If you decide your share of the health insurance is still too high, you can opt out of your employer-sponsored health insurance and choose to buy your insurance through a state health insurance exchange. And if you earn less than 400 percent of the federal poverty level, you can receive a taxpayer-funded subsidy to help pay for that health insurance.

However, if you do that, your employer will be fined if your employer has more than 30 full time employees.

How do you think your employer is going to feel about you going to an exchange to get your insurance and then being fined because of YOU?

Hmmmm...

I guess it all depends if the fine is less than what your employer would have been paying if you stayed with the employer's insurance plan. Then again, people are strange, and even though the fine may be less, it is still a "fine" and that has a negative psychological effect.

 

[g5000]

I am not saying Breitbart is a less trustworthy source than the New York Times (yes I am), but here is the source story on which Breitbart based their story: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/30/us/politics/wrinkle-in-health-law-vexes-lawmakers-aides.html

The Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, the nation’s largest employer-sponsored health insurance program, covers more than eight million people, including government employees and their family members. It offers dozens of competing plans and has been cited as a model by members of both parties.

In battles over the health care law in 2009-10, Republicans proposed a requirement for lawmakers and aides to join the exchanges, and Democrats accepted it.

So Congress is getting booted out of the FEHBP and must buy their insurance through the exchanges.

Bye-bye employer-sponsored (and thus subsidized) health insurance. Hello insurance exchange. That is a substantial jump in cost to each of them.