ObamaCare for Thee

Government workers want out

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is supposed to enforce many provisions in ObamaCare, including revenue-raising taxes and fees, the mandate that individuals carry heath insurance or pay a fine, and the disbursement of subsidies for insurance purchased through the exchanges.

But IRS employees don't want to buy insurance through those exchanges themselves. Over the summer, the National Treasury Employees Union, a labor group that represents IRS workers, set up a form letter for union members to send to their congressional representatives urging lawmakers not to pass legislation that could shift tax workers out of their current federal benefits and into the exchanges.

In July acting IRS chief Danny Werfel defended the petition in an appearance before Congress, saying, "I would prefer to stay with the current policy that I'm pleased with rather than go through a change if I don't need to go through that change."

IRS workers aren't the only public employees who have grumbled about the possibility of having to buy insurance through ObamaCare's exchanges. A provision in the law requires congressional legislators and staffers to buy insurance through the health law's marketplaces. The idea is to ensure that members of Congress and their staffers have to experience ObamaCare the way any ordinary citizen might. But an August decision by the Office of Personnel Management allowed lawmakers and their staffers to use their existing employer health contribution to help subsidize the cost of those plans-an option granted to no other American.