Here’s a pretty solid take on the issue from a right-wing perspective (Avik Roy at Forbes): http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2013/04/25/congress-fearing-brain-drain-seeks-to-opt-out-of-participating-in-obamacares-exchanges/
From the article:
“The fact that Democratic leaders want to opt themselves out of the Obamacare exchanges shows that Sen. Baucus isn’t the only one who realizes the president’s health care law is a ‘train wreck,’” said Boehner spokesman Michael Steel.
“The speaker would like to see resolution of this problem, along with the other nightmares created by Washington Democrats’ health law, which is why he supports full repeal,” Steel added. “In the meantime, it is Democrats’ problem to solve. He will not sneak any language into bills to solve it for them — and the Democratic leadership knows that.”
I just hope Boehner doesn’t fold.
As I understand it, congressional employees have the same benefits package as other Federal employees (same retirement systems, same health benefits package, same life insurance, etc) but are not on the GS system. That means that they do not have a GS grade or receive step increases. Neither do they have the same civil service protections against unfair termination, eligibility for early retirements in lieu of RIFs, etc.
While walking out to get my lunch a few minutes ago I spotted a bumper sticker I’d never seen before. “Resist Obamacare”
Yeah, this is going to go over really well.
If you want to drive the point home even further:
Another WaPo article points out exactly what’s going on here
Let’s get this out of the way first: the Grassley amendment - which created this fiasco in the first place - was never intended to pass, but was rather meant to embarrass Dems. Instead, the Democrats embraced the measure and so it found its way into the rest of the law.
What it’s doing is basically making the ACA doubly apply to Congressional employees, in that even though their employer is offering them coverage anyway, Congress members and staffers still have to get their insurance on the exchanges, no matter what.
Right now, the only people (outside of Congress) who have to get covered on the exchanges are folks who can’t get it through work, are too poor for Medicaid, are buying individual policies, or who can’t get it via their spouses or parents. By making members of Congress get exchange coverage no matter what, lawmakers have subjected themselves to the ACA even more intensely than it applies to the rest of the country.
The problem is, this system might be unworkable until 2017 (when large employers are permitted to enter the exchanges), depending on how OPM interprets the law. The funny thing is that the whole fiasco is easily fixable via any number of ways, yet because GOP Congress members won’t touch the ACA in any way at all that fixes its flaws or otherwise improves it, they might potentially find themselves shouldering a disproportionate amount of their insurance costs.
Good times.
Trust me, if OPM decides that Boehner will have to buy a non-existent policy (which means to health insurance at all) or buy one (if it does exist) without his usual 75% contribution from the taxpayer, he will fold like a cheap suit.
To be clear, though, Terr - you support the Grassley amendment as written, even if it means that Congressmen and their staffers literally cannot legally buy health insurance from 2014 until 2017?
So the government is so incompetent that they can’t even figure out how to have this law work for their own staffers. But they know best how to make health care work for all of us?
I’m not sure who “the government” is in that quote, but if the Democrats had their way there would be no Grassley amendment and no problem. The “fix” from the Democratic perspective is to remove the amendment and have Congress and their staff work under the same rules as everyone else (in this case they would be insured through their employer’s plan).
Some have some pretty good ideas. Some have some lousy ones. some have no ideas at all. Having Congress and staff in the exchanges is a decent idea, long-term, but probably shouldn’t be mandatory until 2017 at the earliest.
Do you have any substantive comment to make on this issue?
I support any stick in the wheels of Obamacare.
No, the REPUBLICANS are so incompetent.
…and if my aunt had balls she’d be my uncle.
The reality is that the members of Congress don’t always get along and just about every bill gets twisted and warped during the sausage making process.
Obamacare is no exception. We should be working to reduce the level of involvement by government in health care, not increasing it.
Just curious, what’s your motivation? Does the idea of insuring the uninsured offend you? Or do you like it when people can’t buy insurance because of pre-existing conditions? Do you want 25 year old dependents to be kicked off their parents’ insurance? So many of the reasons people oppose Obamacare seem to be either grossly uninformed or outright lies- Death panels, socialism, government takeover of health care, etc. So wherein lies your opposition?
Yes, because states that are run almost entirely by Democrats are so competently managed.
MA, CA, NY: All well managed states with no waste, incompetence, or corruption.
:rolleyes:
In other news, they’ve gutted the STOP Act, which would help eliminate insider trading by members of Congress, who consider it one of the perks of being paid by tax dollars, I guess. Worse, Obama was scheduled to sign it.
So that’s a yes, then? Did you support the GOP plan to fund high-risk pools out of the Obamacare “slush fund”?
Obamacare isn’t going anywhere, and I’m really having trouble figuring out the current GOP position on health care given that reality. Maybe they just haven’t come to terms with it enough yet to have a coherent position.
OK, but even if I take that as a given I’m not sure what it means in this context.
Current law requires Congress and their staff to buy insurance from a federally run exchange (the plans themselves would largely be private, but there may be a federally-sponsered plan as well). Previous law had them getting it from the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. Which one of those is less involvement by the government?
In your ideal world, how would Congress and their staff get health care?
I’m not Terr, but I’ll answer:
If I’m paying for it and their not? Yes, it does.
Yes, I do. Why shouldn’t insurance companies get to decide who they cover and who they don’t? There are a lot of solutions to this besides forcing them to cover people. People should buy insurance when they are young and healthy. People get covered under our current system by their employers, which don’t care about pre-existing conditions.
Yes. 25 isn’t a kid anymore.
Death panels isn’t a lie. It’s a pithy summary of what people fear about Obamacare: That it will eventually lead to government bureaucrats making health care decisions for people.
Socialism and government takeover of health care are also valid concerns: Obamacare will certainly lead to less employers offering healthcare. It moves us closer to a single payer system, which is how modern socialist countries generally do healthcare.
And yet, when you look at the list of states with the highest personal incomes, it’s overwhelmingly blue states. Coincidence?
I bet you $10 it involves bartering.
The idea of expansion of government does. In almost any form.
No I didn’t. Any expansion of federal government involvement in non-Constitutional areas I cannot support.
Both are. But whatever makes the government-involvement scheme more unworkable is better.
Those correlate pretty well with higher cost of living, too. Coincidence?