Free Republic

Full title: IRS Employees Union Is 'Very Concerned' About Being Required To Enroll In Obamacare's Health Insurance Exchanges In the private sector, many workers are concerned about losing their employer-sponsored health insurance coverage, and being dumped into Obamacare’s subsidized insurance exchanges. Two weeks ago, representatives of three large labor unions fired off a harsh letter to Democratic leaders in Congress, complaining that Obamacare would “shatter…our hard-earned health benefits” and create “nightmare scenarios” for their members. Today, we learn that the National Treasury Employees Union—the union that includes employees of the Internal Revenue Service—is asking its members to write letters to...

Health insurance premiums for federal workers will increase next year, but would have been higher if not for the government's bargaining power, the Obama administration's personnel chief said Monday. The government announced Friday (without the fanfare of other years) that health care costs for federal workers will increase at a far greater rate than their pay next year, but still at rates less than the premiums of many private-sector workers. Average increases for the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program will be 7.2 percent, significantly more than the anticipated 1.4 percent pay raise in 2011. "The rates are actually much lower...

Searching for an ac ceptable alternative to the controversial "public option," Senate Democrats on Tuesday night adopted three bad ideas instead. Having tried and discarded the "robust" public option, the opt-in and opt-out approaches, co-ops and the "trigger," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid proposed a program similar to the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program, which covers government workers, including Congress members. Reid's plan would also expand Medicare and Medicaid. The FEHBP offers a variety of private insurance plans under a program managed by the US Office of Personnel Management. Each year, OPM uses the federal procurement process to solicit bids...

Health Reform: If Democrats in Washington think their health care reform with a public option is a good thing, why have they exempted themselves from it? Why isn't what's good for their constituents good for them?During ABC's June 24 infomercial for government-run health care broadcast from the White House, President Obama was asked if he and his family would abide by the restrictions and limitations that came with his proposed reforms. In what Ed Morrissey at HotAir.com called "Obama's Michael Dukakis moment," President Obama refused to make such a pledge and confessed that if "it's my family member, if it's...

The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee Friday refused to rule out the possibility that a government-run health insurance plan will be a part of the health-care reform plan he’s crafting. Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who has been the leading advocate for healthcare reform in Congress, told reporters at the National Press Club that a publicly funded health insurance plan – what he calls “the public option” -- was not off limits, adding that “everything is on the table” at this point. “Some people say ‘kick the public option off the table.’ The public option’s on the table,” Baucus said....