House Republicans still don’t like Obamacare — or Obama, for that matter. But at least some of them conceded Friday the president did the right thing in making sure they and their staff wouldn’t lose their health care subsidies under the law.
“There’s no question it was the right thing to do,” said freshmen Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah. “Not just for me, but for my staff. Heavens, I have staff who don’t make much money. This would be a really big bite for them.”
Another Republican congressman described the White House’s intervention as a “relief,” as one aide in his office made around just $30,000 a year and had a child with many health issues. The member wanted to remain anonymous in sensitivity to his staffer’s privacy.
The Office of Personnel Management will issue a new regulation next week clarifying that the government will continue to help defray the cost of premiums for congressional employees in the new health insurance exchanges, which are set to go into effect later this year under the 2010 health care law.
There had been considerable anxiety that the provision of the law forcing members and staff into the exchanges did not provide for the government to continue subsidizing their insurance — potentially costing each of them thousands of dollars out of pocket a year at a time when paychecks in many House members’ offices have been frozen or cut in the past three and a half years because of budget cuts.
Members of both parties had been privately clamoring for the White House to resolve the situation — and passing a legislative fix would have been a dicey proposition given the partisan dispute over the law.
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