That’s Congressman Darrell Issa’s take.
“If the President thinks so well of Obamacare and the Vice President thinks so well of Obamacare he should be in it,” Rep. Darrell Issa said.
“For sebelius not to be in Obamacare and not feel the pain of its complete and total failure to perform at the scheduled levels is a good example where…it might very well be good for them to be in the affordable Care Act and find out that when you go online you can’t get online.”
There’s an idea! Make the head cheerleaders for Obamacare feel the pain of Obamacare.
Maybe then they’ll understand why the GOP keeps trying to repeal it.
And not for nothing, but the law actually requires them to enroll in an Obamacare Exchange. Really. He just decided he was Above The Law, and he exempted himself.
The original 2010 Obamacare law barred members of Congress and their personal staffs from continuing to get employer subsidies – worth $5,000 for individual policies and $11,000 or more for family coverage – because they would be buying coverage from the health-care exchanges, where employer subsidies are banned.
When congressional leaders realized what they had done, they chose not to fix it through legislation, because that would have been highly visible fodder for negative campaign ads. Instead, they asked President Obama to direct the Office of Personnel Management to rule that members of Congress and their staffs could continue to get government subsidies even as they bought coverage in the exchanges. Obama did just that in the middle of the August congressional recess, when few were paying attention. Note that in this case the “employer” is the government, so if subsidies are allowed, they would be paid by taxpayers
In another legally dubious move, OPM declared Congress to be the equivalent of a business with fewer than 50 employees, in order to evade parts of Obamacare. That’s another special treatment – no other bigger business gets to claim it is merely lots of little businesses.
I guess pointing those facts out is racist or something.