By Michael Kitchen LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) -- The White House has approved a deal that will create a regulatory fix for members of Congress and their staff related to some of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act, according to media reports. Under the law, popularly referred to as Obamacare, lawmakers and their aides were required to source health insurance "created" by the law or offered through one of its exchanges; and without the subsidies they currently have, the members of Congress would have faced thousands of dollars in additional premium payments each year, the reports said. However, the Office of Personnel Management now plans to rule that the government can continue to make a contribution to the health-care premiums of the lawmakers and their staff, according to unnamed congressional sources and a White House official. (This report has been updated to clarify the regulatory changes.)
Basically, it sounds like Obama "decreed" it just like he "decreed" the employer mandate exemption.
“deemed” passed...or something like that.
It is luverly to be Tsar.
I’m pretty sure that Obamacare fazed out the old “subsidized” health insurance plans that gov’t employees had available. Rather than “exempting” the Gmen, which isn’t actually possible since there will be no place to “stay”, this new scheme is more of a payroll thing wherein the guy who writes their paychecks will be able to throw in a little “obamastash money” to cover some/most of the difference the Gmen will see when they go to a new plan such that their out-of-pocket will not change as much. They’re just being given a “raise” without re-publishing the pay scale.
I’m not saying it’s not a clusterflock but it appears to be managed as a payroll issue. The cute part is that, since thousands of people are involved, it’s not a small amount of money, and congress will eventually have to vote on the change in the congressional budget. In the short term the question to ask is “where the bleep did they get the money to hand out the raises to everybody?”