Ron Johnson's Lawsuit Against The Special Snowflake ACA Exemption For Congress
Love this guy -- a Republican Senator from the moo-moo state of Wisconsin, filing suit "to make Congress live by the letter of the health-care law it imposed on the rest of America." From his piece in the WSJ:
By arranging for me and other members of Congress and their staffs to receive benefits intentionally ruled out by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the administration has exceeded its legal authority.The president and his congressional supporters have also broken their promise to the American people that ObamaCare was going to be so good that they would participate in it just like everyone else. In truth, many members of Congress feel entitled to an exemption from the harsh realities of the law they helped jam down Americans' throats in 2010. Unlike millions of their countrymen who have lost coverage and must now purchase insurance through an exchange, members and their staffs will receive an employer contribution to help pay for their new plans.
It is clear that this special treatment, via a ruling by the president's Office of Personnel Management, was deliberately excluded in the law. During the drafting, debate and passage of ObamaCare, the issue of how the law should affect members of Congress and their staffs was repeatedly addressed. Even a cursory reading of the legislative history clearly shows the intent of Congress was to ensure that members and staff would no longer be eligible for their current coverage under the Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan.
The law states that as of Jan. 1, 2014, the only health-insurance plans that members of Congress and their staffs can be offered by the federal government are plans "created under" ObamaCare or "offered through an Exchange" established under ObamaCare.
Furthermore, allowing the federal government to make an employer contribution to help pay for insurance coverage was explicitly considered, debated and rejected. In doing so, Congress established that the only subsidy available to them would be the same income-based subsidy available to every other eligible American accessing insurance through an exchange. This was the confidence-building covenant supporters of the law made to reassure skeptics that ObamaCare would live up to its billing. They wanted to appear eager to avail themselves of the law's benefits and be more than willing to subject themselves to the exact same rules, regulations and requirements as their constituents.
Eager, that is, until they began to understand what they had actually done to themselves.








I'm really wondering about the provenance of this. I know that not many people in Congress actually read the whole damn thing before it passed. Nonetheless, with any bill, job 1 is always, always, to have staff scrutinize it to see what provisions it contains covering Congress itself. So the fact that it passed without any objection to this provision suggests to me that the fix was in from the outset -- Congress had already been promised by the White House, on the down-low, that the provision requiring Congress and staff to adhere to the law would not be enforced. It would not have passed otherwise.
Cousin Dave at January 6, 2014 6:31 AM
I would also like to see them forced to participate in Social Security.
Pirate Jo at January 6, 2014 7:45 AM
There shouldn't be a retirement plan for congress critters. They should not be in office long enough to get to that point.
Jim P. at January 6, 2014 10:23 AM
Members of Congress do pay into Social Security, since January 1984.
Ken R at January 6, 2014 3:30 PM
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