GOP Rep Urges Trump to End Lawmakers’ Healthcare Subsidies

Federal workers, like most people who work for large employers, get a substantial portion of their insurance premium paid as part of their overall compensation – about 72 percent under Federal Employee Health Benefits Program.

President Donald Trump, frustrated that he and fellow Republicans in Congress have been unable to keep campaign promises to repeal and replace Obamacare, has threatened to stop making the so-called cost-sharing subsidy, or CSR, payments.

Mr. Alexander said the committee would hold hearings starting the week of September 4 “on the actions Congress should take to stabilize and strengthen the individual health insurance market, so that Americans will be able to buy insurance at affordable prices in the year 2018”.

“After Democrats passed Obamacare in the dead of night, multiple loopholes were exploited so that members of Congress did not have to feel the real economic pain of everyday Americans when paying for their healthcare premiums”, he wrote.

However, a majority of Americans are ready to move on from healthcare at this point. Employer-provided health insurance is not taxed as income.

Why should the family of a killed congressman receive more than that of a killed soldier? They have told us, in fact Oliver Wyman an independent observer of health care, has told us that lack of funding for the cost-sharing reductions would add 11 to 20 percent to premiums in 2018. Right now, the government covers about three-quarters of those premiums, while the lawmakers and their staff members pick up the rest of the tab.

This brings us back to Boehner, Reid, Obama and the OPM.

Usually those buying individual insurance on the exchanges can apply to see if their income and geographic area allow them to qualify for a federal subsidy. Without the rule, Hill employees and their bosses would face a massive pay cut.

Republicans have long protested the payments, and in late 2014 the GOP-led House filed a federal lawsuit against the Obama administration, contending that the subsidies were unconstitutional because Congress had not made a specific appropriation for them. It will “only” need to raise premiums by 8.8 percent if Washington changes nothing. According to a 2013 tally by the Washington Post, libertarian-leaning Sen.

Congressional members, in addition to base salaries of $174,000 that are about three times higher than the private-sector average, get free airport parking, free gyms – on-site, and lavishly outfitted with televisions, a swimming pool, a sauna, basketball courts – and extra-generous vacation days. It’s hard to fully illustrate how dumb and awful this is – not like that’s something brand new. “Many insurers might react to the end of subsidy payments by exiting the ACA marketplaces”. And we shouldn’t be particularly shocked when he follows through.

As insurance providers drop out of the Obamacare state exchanges, they repeatedly note uncertainty as to whether or not the Trump administration will continue to pay out these subsidy payments as a primary reason for their exit.