http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/08/02/lawmakers-aides-get-obamacare-exemption/
There's more to it than that says Politico:
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/capitol-hill-obamacare-crisis-solved-95100.html?hp=t2_3
"House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), in a statement Thursday night, touted the law’s benefits and Democrats’ efforts to educate consumers.
“Members of Congress and their staffs must enroll in health marketplaces as the Affordable Care Act requires,” she wrote. “As we continue our work to ensure the smooth implementation of this law and look forward to the start of enrollment on October 1st, we will continue our efforts this August to educate consumers on the law’s provisions and tout the critical benefits already in place for millions of Americans.”
I guess the spoker of the house finally found out what was in the health care bill since it was passed. Remember this?
"We have to pass the bill so we can find out what's in it."
So think of it this way. Those poor underprivileged Members of Congress and their staffs, many of whom make in excess of $100,000 a year, will get tax-payer subsidies so they can afford to be enrolled in ObamaCare.
5 comments:
There's a lot less here than you imply.
Any employer can make contributions to an employee's health care premiums. In fact, if the government didn't, it should pay a fine.
Not all congressional staffers make $100,000 a year. A lot of the lowly grunts who do the real work get $28,000 or so. I made that much one year, and I couldn't have afforded to pay my own premiums without my employer paying most of it in accordance with the union contract.
Why then, Siarlys, simply go on Medicaid, either then or now. As I understand it, doesn't cost you a dime.
I don't qualify for Medicaid elwood. Besides, I'd rather my employer pay than have the taxpayers pick up the tab. When employed people qualify for public benefits, it means the taxpayers are subsidizing the employer, who ought to be paying a lot more in wages, health insurance premiums, or both.
I did however spend some time today studying the Kaiser Family Foundation's excellent web site about the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. People who moan and groan about not understanding what it will mean should go read the site, its very simple and easily explained. It looks like I can afford either silver or bronze coverage. I doubt if I'll want gold coverage, which of course would cost me more, as it should.
Hopefully there will soon be an option where I can take a $6000 deductible, keep the premiums low, and pay into an HSA. I figure once in three years I might need to dip deep into the HSA, and over three years, I ought to have $6000 saved up. Its not for everyone, but it would work for me.
Siarlys--here is another way to look at it. I suppose you have too much income to go on Medicare (even if you don't want to), but from what you have said in the past it can't be too much by too much, and I don't know your family size, if any. For ilustrative purposes only, if you took say a $5000.00 annual pay cut to enable you to go on Medicaid, and then saved $5000.00 annually on health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket medical expenses, you would be exactly even. If your premiums and other costs were higher than that not being on Medicaid, your disposable income would increase by however much you would not have to pay in premiums and medical costs. Might check it out.
The State of Pennsylvania recently did a study which showed that given all the available State/Federal benefits, a single mother of two in that state would be financially better off, and have more disposable income, if she took the benefits and a job paying $29,000 annually than if she had a job paying $69,000 without the benefits.
Don't let your extreme/radical left-wing ideology cloud your mind such that you are unable to reason things out and talk them through to their logical conclusions, as you are sometimes wont to do.
First elwood, Medicare is what I will qualify for when I'm 65, and will have no hesitation in signing up for it. Medicaid is a rather different proposition. In California its a bit blurry because its all conflated into "Medi-Cal," but there are still differences if you real the fine print. In the rest of the world, we can tell the difference easily.
I'm single, which means the income threshold to qualify for Medicaid is extremely low. Even with the benefits, I'd have to forego ordering dried apricots on line from an orchard in California (since my local supermarket only carries the wimpy sweet Turkish apricots that lack the California tang my grandmother introduced me to). Might have to give up cooking with olive oil and butter, and ruin my health on Crisco and margarine, which would cost the taxpayers a bundle when I needed to see a cardiac specialist and have surgery.
Anyway, your arithmetic assumes that I would use $5000 a year of medical care, and I don't think I would. Further, I might just as well spend the money on insurance if I'm going to deprive myself of so much income just to qualify, and I'd get much better quality care.
You see, I wouldn't mind coughing up the actuarial estimates of the chance I might actually need expensive or traumatic care, which is small but greater than zero. Its paying for the straight jacket imposed by the insurance industry, plus the fabulous profits they rake off, that puts me out of the market.
(Has anyone noticed that after that Harold and Louise campaign in 1993-1995, it turns out what we got from the PRIVATE SECTOR was a huge bureaucracy that told us when we could see a doctor and when we couldn't, what care we could have and what we couldn't, made it all much more expensive, sharply limited free choice, and made us pay whether we needed the care we were assessed for or not?)
The State of Pennsylvania recently did a study which showed that given all the available State/Federal benefits, a single mother of two in that state would be financially better off, and have more disposable income, if she took the benefits and a job paying $29,000 annually than if she had a job paying $69,000 without the benefits.
1) Aren't you glad that it pays for her to work at a $29,000 a year job rather than to slack off and live on the dole?
2) What do you think are her chances of getting a job paying $69,000 a year anyway?
3) If she's working in a profession that she trained for, is committed to, and/or enjoys, do you really think she would "retire" because the benefits are so tempting? No wait, do you think she'd switch to a hum-drum job paying a mere $29,000 a year tops because she'd rather claim the benefits than work at her chosen profession that she trained for and went to school to prepare for?
Maybe what this study shows is that it takes $69,000 a year to raise a family properly, which once again means the employers of people making $29,000 a year are grossly underpaying them (the better to aggrandize a majority of the wealth in the hands of 0.05% of the population), and expecting taxpayers to subsidize those sub-standard wages.
Don't let your foolish treason to your father's union blind you to the complexity of human beings and real life on the ground, as you are wont to do.
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