Ray Jay wrote:I think that would be a mistake politically. I heard an interesting quote yesterday, something like:

Polls are like perfume: great to smell but deadly to drink.

Americans mostly want their government to work together to solve problems. Power politics by either side has a way of backfiring. The Republicans appear small when they overly focus on ACA. It's certainty not the only item in the federal budget that should be defunded. Also, if they let ACA take its course, its weaknesses become more and more apparent.

The decision by the Office of Personnel Management, with Obama's blessing, will prevent the largely unintended loss of healthcare benefits for 535 members of the Senate and House of Representatives and thousands of Capitol Hill staff.

When Congress passed the health reform law known as Obamacare in 2010, an amendment required that lawmakers and their staff members purchase health insurance through the online exchanges that the law created. They would lose generous coverage under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.

The amendment's author, Republican Senator Charles Grassley, argued that if Obamacare plans were good enough for the American public, they were good enough for Congress. Democrats, eager to pass the reforms, went along with it.

But it soon became apparent the provision contained no language that allowed federal contributions toward their health plans that cover about 75 percent of the premium costs.

This caused fears that staff would suddenly face sharply higher healthcare costs and leave federal service, causing a "brain drain" on Capitol Hill.

But Wednesday's proposed rule from the OPM, the federal government's human resources agency, means that Congress will escape the most onerous impact of law as it was written.

NEW YORK (AP) — One casualty of the new health care law may be paid coverage for families of people who work for small businesses.

Insurance companies have already warned small business customers that premiums could rise 20 percent or more in 2014 under the Affordable Care Act. That's making some owners consider not paying for coverage for workers' families, even though insurance is a benefit that helps companies attract and retain top talent. If more small business owners decide to stop paying for family coverage, it will accelerate a trend that started as the cost of health insurance soared in recent years.

Under the law, companies with 50 or more employees are required to provide affordable coverage for their workers. They also must offer health insurance to employees' dependents, but don't have to pay for it. And they aren't required to offer insurance at all to employees' spouses.

Mike Shoop got a taste of what buying insurance will be like under the ACA when he shopped for a policy that will take effect Sept. 1. His insurer quoted premiums 8 percent higher than his current policy, and warned Shoop that he'd get an even larger increase a year from now. Shoop, who owns a debt collection company in Greeley, Colo., said he may have to cut back on insurance for his employees' families if rates keep soaring.

"We're very generous in what we pay," says Shoop, the owner of Professional Finance Co. "But like most companies, we're about at our maximum of the total dollars that we can spend on health care."

Shoop pays between 70 percent and 90 percent of an employee's premium, and between 10 percent and 30 percent of family premiums, depending on how long a worker has been with the company. He declined to say how much he pays for health coverage. Shoop has 150 full-time and 20 part-time workers.

Premiums have been soaring for years because of the rising cost of medical care. But the ACA also has requirements that may drive premiums higher, including a tax on insurance companies that is expected to be passed along to employers. Shoop's insurer has warned that the tax could send his premiums up more than 20 percent a year from now.

"It's going to be very significant," Shoop says. "We're really going to have to do a juggling act, and so are our employees."

It's hard to know at this point how many owners will forgo family coverage, because much about the law is unknown. The government last this month gave employers an extra year, until Jan. 1, 2015, to comply with the health care law. The Internal Revenue Service has drafted regulations to implement the employer mandate, but they haven't taken effect. And premiums for 2014 haven't been set in most states.

Reduced coverage a trend

The ACA is accelerating a trend toward reducing family coverage that has been in place for a number of years at companies of all sizes as employers try to cut costs, according to health insurance brokers. But family coverage is particularly in jeopardy at small companies.

"I would say 99 percent are giving it some consideration," says Rich Fahn, owner of Excell Benefit Group, an employee benefits broker in Northbrook, Ill. "They don't know what the cost impact will be, so everything's on the table."

freeman3 wrote:Shutting down the government to defund ACA would not just be bad politically but it would be damaging to our democracy. The ACA was passed, not accepting that fact is subversive of democratic rule. Now, it is perfectly acceptable to refuse to pass additional requests for money for the ACA as that would be fair game. However, The Republican idea that it is perfectly acceptable to continually threaten to put our country over a cliff over debt ceiling fights or government shutdowns chips away at democracy

freeman3 wrote:Actually, the Congress does not have the power to defund the ACA without passing new legislation. The House can pass what they want (they have repealed the ACA over 30 times) but the only way to delay the ACA is to not fund the government (hence the term government shutdown) So, yes it would be the Republicans shutting down the government to stop the ACA.http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum- ... own-abyss/
And of course even if the government is shut-down then pressure would force the Republicans to cave and the ACA would go on.
Nice try, DF.

freeman3 wrote:Here is a discussion of the mandatory provisions of the ACA that must be funded by Congress and are not part of the budgetary process. http://www.chrt.org/publications/price- ... re-reform/
So that leaves the Republicans with the options of repealing the ACA or totally shutting down the government. Well they can't repeal ACA so that just leaves shutting down the government...what more proof do you want?

freeman3 wrote:Well, I guess you must think most of the budget is unconstitutional, DF...
http://www.heritage.org/federalbudget/m ... y-spending

According to the Congressional Research Service, as of November 2011, the Obama administration had missed as many as one-third of the deadlines, specified by law, under the Affordable Care Act. Here are the details on the latest one.

Obamacare contains a blizzard of mandates and regulations that will make health insurance more costly. One of the most significant is its caps on out-of-pocket insurance costs, such as co-pays and deductibles. Section 2707(b) of the Public Health Service Act, as added by Obamacare, requires that “a group health plan and a health insurance issuer offering group or individual health insurance coverage may not establish lifetime limits on the dollar value of benefits for the any participant or beneficiary.” Annual limits on cost-sharing are specified by Section 1302(c) of the Affordable Care Act; in addition, starting in 2014, deductibles are limited to $2,000 per year for individual plans, and $4,000 per year for family plans. . .

in February, the Department of Labor published a little-noticed rule delaying the cap until 2015. The delay was described yesterday by Robert Pear in the New York Times.

Notes Pear, “Under the [one-year delay], many group health plans will be able to maintain separate out-of-pocket limits for benefits in 2014. As a result, a consumer may be required to pay $6,350 for doctors’ services and hospital care, and an additional $6,350 for prescription drugs under a plan administered by a pharmacy benefit manager.”

The reason for the delay? “Federal officials said that many insurers and employers needed more time to comply because they used separate companies to help administer major medical coverage and drug benefits, with separate limits on out-of-pocket costs. In many cases, the companies have separate computer systems that cannot communicate with one another.”

The best part in Pear’s story is when a “senior administration official” said that “we had to balance the interests of consumers with the concerns of health plan sponsors and carriers…They asked for more time to comply.” Exactly how is it in consumers’ interests to pay far more for health insurance than they do already?