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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RetiredNow who wrote (133560)	4/25/2013 4:57:54 PM
From: Alex MG	1 Recommendation Respond to of 149317

as usual you jump the gun and post BULLSHIT No, Congress isn’t trying to exempt itself from Obamacare Posted by Ezra Klein on April 25, 2013 at 8:50 am There’s a Politico story making the rounds that says that members of Congress are engaged in secret, sensitive negotiations to exempt themselves and their staffs from Obamacare. Well, they were secret, anyway. Obama signs his health-care reform bill into law. (Marvin Joseph-Washington Post) The story has blown up on Twitter. “Unbelievable,” tweets TPM’s Brian Beutler. “Flat out incredible,” says Politico’s Ben White. “Obamacare for thee, but not for me,” snarks Ben Domenech. “Two thumbs way, way down,” says Richard Roeper. (Okay, I made the last one up). If this sounds unbelievable, it’s because it is. There’s no effort to “exempt” Congress from Obamacare. No matter how this shakes out, Congress will have to follow the law, just like everyone else does. Based on conversations I’ve had with a number of the staffs involved in these talks, the actual issue here is far less interesting, and far less explosive, than an exemption. Rather, a Republican amendment meant to embarrass Democrats and a too-clever-by-half Democratic response has possibly created a problem in which the federal government can’t make its normal contribution to the insurance premiums of congressional staffers. Maybe. See? This is getting boring already. Here’s how it happened: Back during the Affordable Care Act negotiations, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) proposed an amendment forcing all members of Congress and all of their staffs to enter the exchanges. The purpose of the amendment was to embarrass the Democrats. But in a bit of jujitsu of which they were inordinately proud, Democrats instead embraced the amendment and added it to the law. Here’s the relevant text: The only health plans that the Federal Government may make available to Members of Congress and congressional staff with respect to their service as a Member of Congress or congressional staff shall be health plans that are — (I) created under this Act (or an amendment made by this Act); or (II) offered through an Exchange established under this Act (or an amendment made by this Act). Let’s stop for a moment here and explain why this is unusual. Large employers — defined in the law as employers with more than 100 employees — aren’t allowed onto the insurance exchanges until 2017, and only then if a state makes an affirmative decision to let them in. But the federal government is the largest employer in the country. So Grassley’s amendment means that the largest employer in the country is required to put some of its employees — the ones working for Congress — on the exchanges. But the exchanges don’t have any procedures for handling premium contributions for large employers. That’s where the problem comes in. This was an offhand amendment that was supposed to be rejected. It’s not clear that the federal government has the authority to pay for congressional staffers on the exchanges, the way it pays for them now in the federal benefits program. That could lead to a lot of staffers quitting Congress because they can’t afford to shoulder 100 percent of their premiums. (There’s also a smaller issue related to how retiree benefits might be calculated. But I’m only willing to go so far into the weeds here.) You’ll notice a lot of hedged language here: “Ifs” and “coulds”. The reason is that the Office of Personnel Management — which is the agency that actually manages the federal government’s benefits — hasn’t ruled on their interpretation of the law. So no one is even sure if this will be an issue. As the Politico article notes, some offices, like that of Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), interpret the language of the law such that there’s no problem at all. Others are worried it could be an issue, and are trying to prepare ways around it. The staffs I talked to stressed this worrying was preliminary, and felt the Politico article was jumping the gun. “This whole Politico story is based on a ruling that hasn’t even come down yet,” one griped. But no one is discussing “exempting” congressional staffers from Obamacare. They’re discussing creating some method through which the federal government can keep making its current contribution to the health insurance of congressional staffers. “Even if OPM rules against us,” one staffer said, “it’s inaccurate to imply that any talks are aimed at exempting federal employees from routine mandates of ACA since any talks are about resolving the unique bind that the Grassley amendment puts federal employees in.” This isn’t, in other words, an effort to flee Obamacare. It’s an effort to fix a drafting error that prevents the federal government from paying into insurance exchanges on behalf of congressional staffers who got caught up in a political controversy.

To: RetiredNow who wrote (133560)	4/25/2013 5:00:09 PM
From: Alex MG	Respond to of 149317

total crap once again... stop watching Fox News and CNN THey are worried that public servant will get hit with the higher costs of Obamacare, just like all the rest of the American public

To: RetiredNow who wrote (133560)	4/25/2013 5:18:43 PM
From: Alex MG	1 Recommendation Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 149317

No shit Obamacare costs more. They sold it to the American public as a cost savings enterprise, but we all knew it wouldn't save a damned penny and that it would cost more. When you add millions to the benefit roles, that COSTS MONEY. bullshit commercialappeal.com "...When people say that Obamacare will, in certain parts of the country, for certain people, increase premiums, what they mean is something akin to the switch from Texas Inc. to Vermont LLC. Obamacare will force insurers to upgrade their products to meet a minimum level of comprehensiveness, lay down some rules limiting price discrimination against the sick and the old and the female, and then help people pay for the final product. It’s a lot like what happens if you move to an employer that offers better health insurance and helps you pay for it. This isn’t, by the way, some new insight, or argument. The Congressional Budget Office wrote about this effect during the Obamacare debate, and its study was widely reported. CBO found that for most Americans, very little would change. If you get insurance through your employer, or through the government, then Obamacare probably won’t affect you much. When we talk about premiums changing, we’re talking about the minority of Americans who buy health insurance on their own or through a very small employer. For them, on average, CBO predicted premiums would increase because subsidies would make it possible for them to purchase higher-quality insurance. In other words, with more money to purchase insurance, they were going to purchase better insurance — that is, after all, the point of the law. But if you held the insurance product constant, then premiums for the same policy in the same market would actually fall, as the risk pool would get a bit healthier. The intent of Obamacare is to ensure that almost all Americans are covered by high-quality insurance that they can afford. To say that the law will move many Americans onto more costly insurance products is simply to restate part of that premise more negatively, and to leave out the effect of the subsidies, or the change in the underlying insurance product, is to mislead.

To: RetiredNow who wrote (133560)	4/25/2013 5:26:24 PM
From: Alex MG	1 Recommendation Respond to of 149317

I'm not for abolishing the IRS, but I am for improving their efficiency and collection rates. We need the IRS to collect taxes to pay for all the free shit that you and your party want. really? you must be like Rand Paul... you really don't know what you think "We don't need the IRS..." - posted by mindmelt Message 28803204 what is all this "free shit" you speak of that i am getting???... you sound just like a typical right wing social conservative jackass