American Encore Joins Coalition To Uncover Fraudulent ObamaCare Exemption For Congress

By: Patrick Hedger-Policy Director, American Encore

When you hear the term “small business,” what comes to mind?

If your answer isn’t “The United States Congress,” prepare to be shocked and likely infuriated.

In order to avoid some of the more unsavory impacts of the Affordable Care Act, better known as ObamaCare, Congress certified itself as a small business with only 45 employees!

This is fraud. By no measure does Congress have anywhere that few employees. There are 100 senators alone!

In response to this outrage, American Encore joined 15 other prominent conservative groups on a letter addressed to the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) requesting an investigation.

Read the letter below, along with some more in-depth policy background on the issue following the letter.

Conservatives Urge Chaffetz To Investigate Congress's Obamacare Fraud

Background:
Prior to ObamaCare, members of Congress and their staff received employer-sponsored health insurance from the federal government, not unlike most Americans receive from their employers today. Of course, since Congress works for the federal government, these contributions are actually funded by the American taxpayer.

However, during the initial Affordable Care Act formation and debate in Congress, there was a concerted effort to make sure that members of Congress and their staff would have to live under the health reforms they were imposing on the American people. Language made it into the final version of ObamaCare that prohibited members of Congress and their staff from receiving the usual federal employee benefits and instead force them all to buy individual coverage on the District of Columbia insurance exchange established under the law. By doing so, they would also lose their employer’s contribution to their health insurance expenses, which can range between $5,000 and $11,000 a year.

That didn’t happen.

Instead, it appears leaders in Congress attempted to skirt the law and preserve the taxpayer contributions to their health insurance costs. Members and their staff were supposed to be dumped into the more expensive and less comprehensive plans offered on the individual exchanges created by ObamaCare. In this way, they would find themselves subjected to the same harsh reality Congress created for millions of Americans who also lost their employer-sponsored coverage under ObamaCare. After all, it’s always a good thing to remind those at the center of the Washington bubble what it’s really like in the rest of the country.

Instead, the Obama administration’s Office of Personnel Management tweaked the rules to allow for continued taxpayer subsidization of Congressional health benefits. Yet the problem for Congress remained, despite this shift via executive fiat. The law still required for members of Congress and their employees to obtain their insurance through the DC exchange. Unfortunately, which exchange that had to be was not specified under the law.

Under ObamaCare, employers with less than 50 employees are eligible for subsidies to purchase group-rated plans offered on a small business exchange. This was meant as a way of expanding coverage to employees not covered by the employer mandate, which required all firms with 50 or more employees to offer insurance or pay a fine.  Thus, there exist two types of ObamaCare exchanges: one for small business and one for individuals.

Unsurprisingly, the individual exchanges were never designed for employers and employees to split the cost of health insurance. These exchanges were explicitly designed to accommodate those without employer health benefits. So Congress could not maintain the benefits President Obama promised they could keep if they used the individual exchange. Therefore, they turned to the small business exchange instead, which of course allowed for cost sharing between employees and employers.

Yet, as mentioned, the small business exchanges are exclusively for small businesses of fewer than 50 employees. It would be illegal for a larger firm to use a small business exchange and all its associated benefits. Of course, that didn’t stop our lawmakers, who seem to fancy themselves above the laws they make.
Congress submitted documents to the DC small business exchange claiming to have only 45 employees.

This is completely ludicrous. The Senate itself has more-than-twice that many senators! There are 435 members of the House of Representatives. That amounts to 535 employees without even beginning to count all the individual office support staffers as well as any committee staff, food service, security, and maintenance workers employed in Congress. All told, Congress employs over 21,000 people! Yet, to maintain their generous taxpayer-funded contributions to their health insurance, leaders in Congress claimed that the legislative body is just like any other small business in Washington, D.C.

That is the definition of fraud.