There’s a whole lot of stupid involved with the government shutdown, but the story that just blows me away is the Vitter Amendment and the so-called “special treatment” that Congress is supposedly getting with regards to health insurance. If you want to hear a small part of why we are in the situation we are in, let’s go down the rabbit hole and try to figure this one out…
The health exchanges that were set up under Obamacare were set up for people who do not have health insurance and do not get health insurance from their employer. Lots and lots of people in the U.S. get health insurance via their jobs, and Obamacare changes next to nothing about that coverage, doing little more than making small tweaks to what is and isn’t included in the plans. Importantly, if you have health insurance through your employer, you continue to get it through your employer, not the exchanges. The Walmarts and the Boeings and the Microsofts and the Googles of the country will offer health insurance to their employees the same as they always did. No change. Hey, I don’t like it, but a big part of the law was ensuring that most people don’t see changes and making changes gradual, and it is what it is.
Now, when Congress was debating the bill years ago, Chuck Grassley put up an amendment to the bill meant to embarrass Democrats that said that Congress would have to use the exchanges to provide insurance to Congresspersons and staffers. Having worked at the state legislature for over ten years, I have had many, many hours of my life wasted on similar “gotcha” amendments to bills. They are largely unserious amendments and no way to govern, but hey, apparently you have to fill your campaign literature with something, and these silly votes tend to be what fill your mailbox every fall. These are exactly the kinds of procedural votes that lead to headlines like “Senator X voted to take puppies away from disadvantaged children!” Unfortunately, instead of voting “No” like all elected officials should do for all gotcha amendments in order to not encourage such behavior, Democrats voted yes. And so it was passed into law that Congress would have to use the exchanges to get insurance.
However, the exchanges were not set up for this. Again, the exchanges were set up for individuals, not large businesses. The main issue was that Congress, like all large employer, pays the majority of health care premiums for their employees. And there was no way for Congress to put the employer part of the premiums towards policies bought on the exchange under the exchange mechanisms in law. So unlike the employees of every other large employer in the country, Congresspersons and staffers would have to pay the full cost of health care with no help. This is poor policy, not how Obamacare is supposed to work, and most absurdly, itself a special unfair treatment for Congress.
Since putting Congress at an employment disadvantage compared to every other employer in the U.S. by making employees pay the full cost of their insurance is a really, really poor way to attract talent, it was ruled that Congress, even though they have to use the exchanges to purchase insurance, can at least continue to pick up part of the tab. This would be a klugy way back to the status quo, but it would at least be comparable to every other employer out there. It would undo the unfair treatment of insurance in Congress. And……this fix is exactly what the Vitter Amendment tries to undo.
This is where we are today: Congress votes bad policy into law due to an attempt at creating some campaign fodder. When the Office of Personnel Management rightly tries to fix this so Congresspersons and, more importantly, staffers aren’t screwed over, it becomes an invented issue, and the result is that a plan to make sure that Congress is the only large employer in the country that makes employees pay the full cost of their health insurance becomes the “grand bargain” to avoid a government shutdown.
Absurdly, this is being reported as special “subsidies” for Congress. It’s not, any more than any person with employee-provided health insurance gets “subsidies” in the form of the employer contribution. John Boehner, probably because realizes that attracting people to jobs that start at $28K in one of the most expensive cities in the country will be even harder if health insurance is not part of the benefits package, rightly tried to put a stop to this Vitter nonsense, but like everything else he got caught up in the politics of it. But let’s be honest, he’s no saint either: a minor tweak, a technical correction, could have easily passed Congress to allow the employer contribution to be applied to policies purchased on exchanges. However, there is no interest from Republicans in Congress to fix these minor issues, which is quite the way to govern.
Even worse, there are people in Congress like Phil Gingrey who believe 100% that the people who answer their phones and sort their mail should not have any part of their health insurance paid for by Congress; after all, they could all just get jobs making “a half-million a year” as lobbyists. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to work for somebody who has such contempt for their own staff.
“We will shut down the government unless we can take benefits away from our staff!” is quite the rallying cry, and a hell of a way to run Congress, but this is the crux of the fake controversy about “special treatment”. Unfortunately, I think it’s only going to get worse.