Even though they’ll be charged with enforcing its mandates, employees of the Internal Revenue Service are petitioning Congress to be exempted from Obamacare.
The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents employees of the IRS and several other federal agencies, is asking its members to sign letters to Congress objecting to H.R. 1780, a new bill proposed by Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., which would compel federal employees, including the president, Congress and IRS, to participate in the health plans and health insurance exchanges created by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.
“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,” the form letters state. “The primary purpose of the Affordable Care Act was to provide a marketplace for the sale and purchase of health insurance for those who do not have such coverage – not to take coverage away from employees who already receive it through their employers.”
Yet as thousands of private-sector employees have already experienced, the net effect of Obamacare has been exactly as the union fears: incentivizing employers to drop coverage or cut work hours to avoid spiking health-insurance costs, thus stripping employees of private health-plan options and dropping them into the federal insurance exchanges.
Camp, the lawmaker referred to in the letter and the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, introduced H.R. 1780 in April after rumors top congressional leaders were attempting to exempt themselves and their staff from the exchanges, even though the PPACA specifically requires members of Congress participate in them.
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