Obamacare Fallout Continues

Thanks to the Obamacare law:

• Forever 21 Inc. became the latest national company to cap employee work hours at 29.5 hours per week.
• Beginning Jan 1, 2014, working spouses of University of Virginia employees will no longer be covered under UVA's health plan.  And UVA premiums are going up, too:
  "Provisions of the federal Affordable Care Act are projected to add $7.3 million to the cost of the University health plan in 2014 alone. ... 'Ironically, by providing generous benefits, the University becomes exposed to a federal excise tax known as the Cadillac tax,' [UVa Vice President and Human Resources Officer, Susan] Carkeek said." (The UVa Medical Center wholeheartedly endorsed Obamacare back in 2010.)
• UPS will drop about 15,000 working spouses in 2014 for the same reason.

However, there will be no pain for Congress and their staff due to Obamacare, according to the Wall Street Journal. The law requires the nearly 11,000 Members and Congressional staff to switch from Federal Employees health program to the new Obamacare exchanges, which could mean "thousands of dollars a year in out-of-pocket insurance costs" they weren't paying before.

The result was a full wig out on Capitol Hill, with Members of both parties fretting about "brain drain" as staff face higher health-care costs. Democrats in particular begged the White House for help ... And now the White House is suspending the law to create a double standard. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that runs federal benefits will release regulatory details this week, but leaks to the press suggest that Congress will receive extra payments based on the FEHBP defined-contribution formula, which covers about 75% of the cost of the average insurance plan. For 2013, that's about $4,900 for individuals and $10,000 for families.

How OPM will pull this off is worth watching. ... In any case the carve-out for Congress creates a two-tier exchange system, one for the great unwashed and another for the politically connected.

This latest White House night at the improv is also illegal. OPM has no authority to pay for insurance plans that lack FEHBP contracts, nor does the Affordable Care Act permit either exchange contributions or a unilateral bump in congressional pay in return for less overall compensation. Those things require appropriations bills passed by Congress and signed by the President.

The lesson for Americans is that Democrats who passed ObamaCare didn't even understand what they were doing to themselves, much less to everyone else. But you can bet Democrats will never extend to ordinary Americans the same fixes that they are now claiming for themselves. The real class divide in President Obama's America is between the political class and everyone else.