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President Obama intervenes to exempt Congress from Obamacare

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From the Wall Street Journal.

Excerpt:

To adapt H.L. Mencken, nobody ever went broke underestimating the cynicism and self-dealing of the American political class. Witness their ad-libbed decision, at the 11th hour and on the basis of no legal authority, to create a special exemption for themselves from the ObamaCare health coverage that everybody else is mandated to buy.

[…][Obamacare] means that about 11,000 Members and Congressional staff will lose the generous coverage they now have as part of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP). Instead they will get the lower-quality, low-choice “Medicaid Plus” of the exchanges. The Members—annual salary: $174,000—and their better paid aides also wouldn’t qualify for ObamaCare subsidies. That means they could be exposed to thousands of dollars a year in out-of-pocket insurance costs.

The result was a full wig out on Capitol Hill, with Members of both parties fretting about “brain drain” as staff face higher health-care costs. Democrats in particular begged the White House for help, claiming the Reid language was merely an unintentional mistake. President Obama told Democrats in a closed-door meeting last week that he would personally moonlight as HR manager and resolve the issue.

And now the White House is suspending the law to create a double standard. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that runs federal benefits will release regulatory details this week, but leaks to the press suggest that Congress will receive extra payments based on the FEHBP defined-contribution formula, which covers about 75% of the cost of the average insurance plan. For 2013, that’s about $4,900 for individuals and $10,000 for families.

[…]This latest White House night at the improv is also illegal. OPM has no authority to pay for insurance plans that lack FEHBP contracts, nor does the Affordable Care Act permit either exchange contributions or a unilateral bump in congressional pay in return for less overall compensation. Those things require appropriations bills passed by Congress and signed by the President.

But the White House rejected a legislative fix because Republicans might insist on other changes, and Mr. Obama feared that Democrats would go along because they’re looking out for number one. So the White House is once again rewriting the law unilaterally, much as it did by suspending ObamaCare’s employer mandate for a year. For this White House, the law it wrote is a mere suggestion.

The lesson for Americans is that Democrats who passed ObamaCare didn’t even understand what they were doing to themselves, much less to everyone else. But you can bet Democrats will never extend to ordinary Americans the same fixes that they are now claiming for themselves. The real class divide in President Obama’s America is between the political class and everyone else.

Just keep in mind that there is only one party fighting to repeal this monstrosity, and it’s the Republican Party. The Democrat Party wrote this bill, they supported this bill, and their supporters helped push it through. Now they are trying to get THEMSELVES out of it. But they still want it to apply to YOU. The only people trying to get YOU out of it is the Republican Party.

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Aetna pulls out of Obamacare exchanges in Maryland – can’t operate at a loss

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Left-leaning Reuters reports on the implementation of Obamacare in Maryland.

Excerpt:

Aetna Inc pulled out of Maryland’s health insurance exchange being created under President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform law after the state pressed it to lower its proposed rates by up to 29 percent.

Under the law, often called Obamacare, each U.S. state will have an online exchange where Americans will be able to buy insurance plans, starting on October 1. The government is counting on about 7 million people to enroll next year for this insurance, many of whom will qualify for subsidies.

The success of the exchanges, as well as the expansion of the government’s Medicaid program for the poor, are key elements in the political battle between Republicans and Democrats. State officials say the price of the new insurance plans will help determine whether enough people sign up.

In an August 1 letter sent to the Maryland Department of Insurance, Aetna said the state’s requirement for rate reductions off its proposed prices would lead it to operate at a loss. The rate reductions include products from Aetna and Coventry Health Care, which it bought this spring.

“Unfortunately, we believe the modifications to the rates filed by Aetna and Coventry would not allow us to collect enough premiums to cover the cost of the plans, including the medical network and service expectations of our customers,” Aetna said in the letter to insurance commissioner Therese Goldsmith.

According to online documents, Aetna had requested an average monthly premium of $394 a month for one of its plans and the agency had approved an average rate of $281 per month.

Aetna Chief Executive Officer Mark Bertolini said earlier this week during a conference call to announce financial results that it was closely looking at its plans for the exchanges since buying Coventry.

Like most other large U.S. insurers, Aetna has taken a cautious approach to the new products which must include a broader set of benefits and be sold to all people regardless of their health.

Doug Ross blogged about the cost of health insurance in Ohio a while back. He linked to this article from Forbes magazine.

Excerpt:

[O]n Thursday, the Ohio Department of Insurance announced that, based on the rates submitted by insurers to date, the average individual-market health insurance premium in 2014 will come in around $420, “representing an increase of 88 percent” relative to 2013…

[…]It’s called “rate shock,” but it’s not shocking to people who understand the economics of health insurance. In August 2011, Milliman, one of the nation’s leading actuarial firms, predicted that Obamacare would increase individual-market premiums in Ohio by 55 to 85 percent. This past March, the Society of Actuaries projected that the law would increase premiums in that market by 81 percent…

[…]What are the drivers of the increase? According to Milliman, the two biggest drivers are (1) risk pool composition changes, such as forcing the young to subsidize the old, and the healthy to subsidize the sick; and (2) Obamacare’s required expansion of insurance benefits, particularly its mandated reductions in deductibles and co-pays…

Doug makes the point that we already knew what happens to the cost of health care when government imposes price controls – we get a shortage of health care, and prices go up. We knew that. Obamacare is nothing but a further intervention into free market to impose more price controls. Guess what? It’s going to do the exact same thing. The only way out of this mess is going to be for government to ration care by reducing the number of doctors and delaying treatment with waiting lists – exactly what happens today in Canada.

During the election campaign, Obama promised everyone that his health care policy would result in lower premiums. What reasons did we have to believe him when he said that? Did he have a record of competence on health care policy, like Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal does? Did he have a career in private sector health care to draw on, like Mark Bertolini does? No. Obama had nothing but talk. And we were too busy watching television to care.

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IRS employee union opposes making Obamacare apply to themselves

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CNS News reports.

Excerpt:

The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents Internal Revenue Service employees, is urging its members to oppose legislation that would force federal employees off their government healthcare plans and onto the state and national healthcare exchanges established under Obamacare.

Members of Congress and their staffers are already required to participate in the exchanges, which will go into effect next October 1st under the Affordable Care Act.

However, a bill (HR 1780) introduced in April by Rep. David Camp (R–Mich.) would extend that requirement to all federal employees, an idea that does not sit well with the union.

So NTEU is strongly urging its members –  including the Internal Revenue Service agents tasked with implementing Obamacare – to oppose Camp’s legislation, which would compel them to personally participate in the same healthcare program they will be enforcing.

On the NTEU website, union members are urged to email their congressman and senators, asking them to oppose H.R.1780. NTEU provides a sample letter that members can simply sign and send, or rewrite it as they wish:

“I am a federal employee and one of your constituents. I am very concerned about legislation that has been introduced by Congressman Dave Camp to push federal employees out of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) and into the insurance exchanges established under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

[…]Last election cycle, the NTEU donated $547,812 to pro-Obamacare Democrat candidates, including Rep. Nancy Pelosi ($10,000), Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) ($11,000), and Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) ($12,500). And that figure doesn’t include the $62,500 the NTEU donated to the Democrat National Committee, or the $125,000 it gave to various left-leaning super PACs.

However, the union only donated $24,000 total to Republican candidates during the same time period.

Wow. And recently we saw that three of the biggest automobile manufacturer unions were also pushing back against Obamacare. Apparently, no one who actually worked to get Obamacare passed wants it for themselves. They just want it for other people.