Congress' ObamaCare Exemption

Congress' ObamaCare Exemption May Cause Political Trouble At Home

19 Comments

BY JENNY BETH MARTIN

07/09/2015

Did the Internal Revenue Service just blow Congress' cover? Because what the IRS just did is going to ensure that an awful lot of small-business owners (every member's favorite politically approved special interest) find out something Congress wants very much to keep hidden — its special exemption from ObamaCare.

Beginning on July 1, the IRS started imposing a penalty on small-business owners who help their employees, who purchase their health insurance independently on the individual market. Paying or reimbursing any part of an employee's premium will result in a fine of $100 per employee per day — that's $36,500 per year per employee.

What, you may ask, does that have to do with Congress? Well, members of Congress and their staffs now receive what they euphemistically refer to as "employer contributions" (but which the rest of us simply call "taxpayer-funded subsidies") as the result of a decision made almost two years ago to provide them health insurance from the District of Columbia small-business exchange.

So the IRS, by issuing this new regulation — which, like many Affordable Care Act regulations, is found nowhere in the law itself — is highlighting the fact that, once again, Congress has separate rules for itself.

A small-business owner might ask: "Wait, Congressman. You're telling me I get fined for helping my employees pay for their health insurance, but you get to do that — with my taxes, no less — in clear violation of the law? And you get an employer subsidy yourself, on top of that?"

Let's back up. Section 1312(D) of the Affordable Care Act requires members of Congress and their staffs to purchase their insurance from an ObamaCare exchange.

But under Section 1512, individuals who purchase health insurance on their own are not allowed to receive an employer subsidy to help defray the cost of their premiums.

To this, members of Congress said, "No subsidies? No thanks!"

So they decided instead to purchase their insurance off the D.C. small business exchange, which does allow employee contributions.

To do that, Congress, the distinctly 535-member body, with over 14,000 staffers, declared itself a "small business" with "less than 50 employees." It may as well be renamed the Congressional Exemption Exchange.

For a year and a half now, members of Congress and their staffs have been congratulating themselves for this genius evasion.

Yet now they're liable to huge fines — and even bigger embarrassment.

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, the penalty for lying on an ObamaCare application is $250,000 per infraction. That's what you or I could expect to pay if we engaged in the dishonest tactics Congress is employing. If Congress were to be penalized in accordance with the law, that's almost $3.5 billion in fines.

So taxpayers could be on the hook for almost $3.5 billion in fines per year, just so members of Congress and their staffs can evade the hardship they intended for the rest of the country.

Is this the IRS' way of getting back at Congress for its recent budget cuts and subpoenas? Maybe. Payback, it is said, is hell . .. and this one would be a real doozy.

The best move for Congress, of course, would be to repeal the entire Affordable Care Act and exempt all of America from its disastrous fines, high costs and lower quality care.

Until such time, the second-best move for Congress would be to end its special treatment, leave the D.C. small-business exchange and require its members and staffers to purchase their health insurance through the exchanges without benefit of taxpayer-funded subsidies ... as the law actually requires.

My experience, sadly, instructs me not to hold my breath. But that won't keep us from expecting Congress to do the right thing, and working to that end.

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Martin is CEO and co-founder of Tea Party Patriots.

Read More At Investor's Business Daily: http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-perspective/070915-761020-irs-rules-force-small-businesses-to-pay-penalties-but-not-congress.htm#ixzz3fnd9h100
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