Is Congress Getting A Better Deal Than You On Obamacare?
The refrain was common during the 2008 health care debate: "At the end of the day, I figure if it's good enough for Congress, it's good enough for the American people," then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said at an Arizona campaign stop in January 2008, referring to the Democrats' plans for reform.
Members of Congress and their staff currently get their health insurance through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. However, to make Democrats eat their words, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, added an amendment to the Affordable Care Act requiring congressmen and their staff to get their insurance the same way many Americans will starting in 2014, thanks to Obamacare -- through the state-based health care exchanges. Democrats embraced the idea, willing to stand by their assertions that the exchanges would offer quality insurance.
The proposal put Congress in a tough spot: The business exchanges starting next year will only cater to small businesses -- an entity as large as Congress wouldn't be able to join the exchange system until 2017 at the earliest. There will also be exchanges next year for people purchasing insurance on the individual market, but it wouldn't make sense for someone with employer-provided insurance (like a congressional staffer) to join that market.
So when Obamacare passed in 2010, the provision raised a number of questions: When would members of Congress and their employees be subject to this new rule? Would staffers purchasing their insurance on the new exchanges still get their coverage subsidized by their employer, the government? On Wednesday, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued new proposed rules. OPM suggested, among other things, that congressional offices should determine for themselves which staffers must abide by the new rule, since some staffers spend more time working for leadership offices (which are exempt from the rule). It also says that employees getting insurance through the exchanges could still get employer contributions to their premiums, as others on the employer-based exchanges would.
The rulings should ease concerns of lawmakers (both Democrat and Republican) who were worried their lower-paid staffers would quit if forced to pay more for health insurance. "I think it is self-evident that it's part of their compensation here is that they would have health care," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said last week.
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http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57597641/is-congress-getting-a-better-deal-than-you-on-obamacare/
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