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ACA Running Thread

there are lots of things to dislike about Obamacare. The "congressional exemption" piece is stupid. The exchanges are for people who don't get health insurance through their employers for whatever reason. If an employer kicks people off its insurance and tells them to go to the exchange, people generally expect the employer to raise wages by some amount to make up for it. Congressmen and their staffs are employed and should get health insurance through their employers. If the employer kicks them out, it should raise their pay to be consistent with the way the law treats "everyone else" (in fact, an unknown but expected to be small percentage of the population).

Instead what you have is a political stunt that kicked off relatively low-paid, young staff members and forced them to the exchanges with no concomitant increase in their pay. No other employed person got kicked off their plan by express action of the law. This is not consistent with how the law treats "everyone else". I think they fixed this to allow staff - but NOT actual members of Congress - to stay on their government health plans, just like "everyone else" can stay on their employer's health plan.

Harry Reid himself is required by law to leave the federal health plan and go to the exchange if he wants health insurance, his staff is not. He doesn't get a pay raise to help him buy the insurance, either.

People can get mad about it if they want to, but it's a stupid thing to get mad about. There are much, much more important things about Obamacare to get mad about.
 
DeacMan said:
And in your world its apparently ok to tell the American people if they like their plan, they can keep their plan and if they like their doctor, they can keep their doctor. Period.

In my world it is a reasonable expectation for a voter to want the ACA exchanges to apply to all members of Congress and their staff seeing as how they pushed enrollment in such exchanges upon millions of people under the pretense it would lower costs and lead to better care.
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Once again I never said that. They made a big mistake with that. They should have added "if your plan complies".

The other problem with this aspect of ACA was Roberts' allowing states not to participate. That was totally illogical and a way he thought he could kill the law without overturning it directly.
 
RJKarl said:
Once again I never said that. They made a big mistake with that. They should have added "if your plan complies".

The other problem with this aspect of ACA was Roberts' allowing states not to participate. That was totally illogical and a way he thought he could kill the law without overturning it directly.
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If by "mistake", you mean they knowingly misled the electorate but mistakenly thought everyone would be okay with it, then I agree with you.
 
Every single day Hannity wakes up, you know he's reading about the rollout and doing the Colbert head nod to Larry David's Max Bialystock. I don't care if it's a dumb joke, I'm certain this actually happens.
 
bmoneydeac said:
But isn't that exactly what they did? Aren't members of Congress required to get their insurance through the exchange?
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"The Affordable Care Act says that starting in 2014, members of Congress and their staffs can no longer get their health insurance through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, as they have in the past. Instead, these federal employees will have to get insurance through the exchanges set up by the Affordable Care Act. Other Americans with work-based insurance aren’t subject to such a requirement. They can continue to get health insurance through their employers. Other federal workers, too, can continue to select health insurance plans through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. But not Congress."

Yes, Deacman has no idea what he's talking about.
 
No. You are incorrect. Some staff members labeled "personnel" staff members do not have to go on the exchanges. And that is a fact, Jack. And if you think Congressmen and women don't have personnel staff members and that said line isn't blurred you are a lemming.
 
I'm posting laws, and you're posting suppositions and conjecture. You really don't understand this law at all.
 
ONW said:
I'm posting laws, and you're posting suppositions and conjecture. You really don't understand this law at all.
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As an aside, that reminds me of Obama saying they just figured out (arguably very late in the game) that insurance is complicated to buy.
 
ONW said:
Link?
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Funny. Some things (e.g., the sun is a burning ball of gas) don't need to be linked, do they? You're either trolling me or you haven't been following the roll-out closely. I'm going with the former.
 
beatrix said:
Funny. Some things (e.g., the sun is a burning ball of gas) don't need to be linked, do they? You're either trolling me or you haven't been following the roll-out closely. I'm going with the former.
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Has it sucked, yes. Has he said "we're just figuring out that insurance is complicated to buy?"
 
WFU71 said:
I hadn't heard that, either. Looked it up out of curiosity.
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Seriously, every person in America should know by the age of 25 that insurance of any kind is difficult to buy.
 
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DeacMan said:
If by supposition and conjecture you mean to argue that Harry Reid didn't spare some members of his staff from Obamacare and left them on their Federal insurance that was already in place then you have some explaining to do. Because those are FACTS. Not conjecture.
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No one is sparing anyone from anything, it's illegal to buy insurance on an exchange when you have employer provided insurance. That coverage ends January 1 by law, for every congressional members' staff as well.
 
No it doess't end for every congressional member's staff. For shit's sake, you really need to read how this works. Congressional members can label some members as different from others. If someone is labeled as committee and leadership staff as opposed to personal staff they can be exempted from the law. And members other than Reid have done this - including Barbara Boxer. Others have refused to provide said designation to any of their staff. I'm tired of pointing this out to you. Here is yet another article on this very point - from CNN - who I presume you will now try to call into question.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/04/politics/reid-obamacare-staff/
 
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