All of the top leadership of the United States Senate and House of Representatives have bought into the idea that if millions of Americans must use the newly-created exchanges to find and purchase health plans, then those that crafted the law should as well–all except for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
A little background–
Since these marketplace exchanges are, at least in theory, supposed to deliver “superior” products at a “competitive” price, then Members of Congress and their staffs should have no issue purchasing health insurance through those exchanges, right? Such was the thinking of the Congress of the United States when it passed H.R. 3590, also known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), with the following provision:
“MEMBERS OF CONGRESS IN THE EXCHANGE.— (i) REQUIREMENT.—
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, after the effective date of this subtitle, 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).”
(http://1.usa.gov/18kYi3C)
In case you were wondering, there was no other health plan created for Members of Congress or congressional staffs under this act, or any amendments (the Federal Employees Health Benefit program existed long before the Affordable Care Act). Yes, Congress passed a law forcing its own Members and staffs to receive health care via the exchanges–and they accidentally wrote themselves out receiving any additional compensation in the process (all lawmakers and most staffers are over the 400%-of-poverty-line cutoff to receive subsidies). The law also defines what constitutes “congressional staff:”
“The term ‘congressional staff’ means all full-time and part-time employees employed by the official office of a Member of Congress, whether in Washington, DC or outside of Washington, DC.”
Of course, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) allows Members of Congress to designate who is and who is not “official staff:”
“Because there is not an existing statutory or regulatory definition, OPM believes that Members of Congress are best able to designate which of their staff members work in their official office (and therefore, must choose health plans from the Exchanges).”
(http://1.usa.gov/IDXNG4)
This means that congressional leadership, who generally have additional staffers for legislative committees and leadership positions, must determine which staffers are “official” and cannot be exempted from the exchanges, and which staffers are “non-official” and may be exempted. Every top leader in the Congress has opted to keep all of their staffers on the exchanges–Democrats for the likely reason that they believe in the law and choose to demonstrate their faith in it, and Republicans ostensibly to martyr themselves and demonstrate that they are going to suffer the repercussions of “Obamacare” along with everyone else. Sen. Reid is the outlier.
Sen. David Vitter (R-La) sees something incongruent here, and yesterday sent an open letter to Sen. Reid requesting additional information on which staffers were exempted, on what grounds, and whether they were involved in drafting the Affordable Care Act (bit.ly/1f7HbRU). These seem like altogether reasonable questions, given that the White House, the OPM and the Department of Health and Human Services seem to be making this up as they go along. And if congressional staffs are mandated to purchase health plans through the exchanges, it seems reasonable for the federal government to contribute to the premiums, like any other large employer (although the legislature must amend existing law to reflect this, rather than the White House and the OPM changing federal statute by executive fiat). What is not reasonable is claiming to “stand ready to work with any Republican” to address flaws with the Affordable Care Act, while blocking legislation attempting to do just that and while exempting certain staffers from having to participate in the same exchanges forced on the rest of Congress and millions of American people.
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