So far we have seen tens of thousands of pages of regulations on Obamacare from four different federal bureaucracies. Health and Human Services (HHS), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Department of Labor (DOL), and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have all had their fingers in the stew. Tomorrow, the Office of Personnel Management will get in on the action by expressly opening up taxpayer subsidies for certain temporary and seasonal workers with a new proposed regulation.This is from The Blaze:
The Obama administration on Tuesday will publish a proposed rule that would give thousands of temporary and seasonal government workers access to the government’s health care program, even though Obamacare explicitly prohibits them from using that program.
The rule from the Office of Personnel Management would let these federal workers sign up for coverage under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, and also allow some of them to enjoy a government contribution to their insurance premiums. Both steps would be done through OPM’s proposed regulation, and not through an act of Congress. ...
The proposed rule indicates that OPM is not very clear on how much these changes would cost taxpayers, and is seeking comment on that aspect of the rule. It did say it expects that the rule should not be seen as economically significant, since it believes it would cost less than $100 million.
OPM reaches that conclusion by assuming that only 10 to 20 percent of currently ineligible federal workers would sign up for an FEHB plan. But a quick calculation using OPM’s own figures indicates that the cost could be much higher than that. ...
Here is an excerpted summary of the regulations (posted in full at the bottom of this post):
The United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is issuing a proposed rule that would expand eligibility for enrollment under the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program to certain temporary, seasonal, and intermittent employees who are identified as full-time employees. This regulation would make FEHB coverage available to these newly eligible employees no later than January 2015. ...
OPM is proposing to expand eligibility for coverage under the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program to certain temporary, seasonal, and intermittent Federal employees who are expected to work full-time schedules within the meaning of section 4980H of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) for at least 90 days.
This proposed rule would expand eligibility by authorizing enrollment in a FEHB health plan for certain Federal employees on temporary appointments and certain employees working on seasonal and intermittent schedules. Currently, most employees on temporary appointments become eligible for FEHB coverage after completing one year of current continuous employment and, once eligible for coverage, do not receive an employer contribution to premium. ...
Under this proposed regulation, employees on temporary appointments, employees on seasonal schedules who will be working less than six months per year, and employees working intermittent schedules would be eligible to enroll in a FEHB health plan if the employee is expected to work a full-time schedule of 130 or more hours in a calendar month. If the employing office expects the employee to work at least 90 days, the employee is eligible to enroll upon notification of the employee’s eligibility by the employing office. ...
The change in eligibility for coverage set forth in this proposed regulation is intended to ensure, to the greatest extent practicable, that full-time employees, within the meaning of section 4980H of the IRC and Treasury regulations thereunder (79 FR 8544, February 12, 2014) are eligible to enroll in FEHB. IRC section 4980H, enacted as part of the Affordable Care Act. ...[Here, OPM writes that it does not know how much this will cost but estimates it will be under $100 million; meaning no further study is required.]
Impacts of the Proposed Rule
Agencies may incur FEHB expansion costs....
We do not know how many individuals without an offer of FEHB, which varies widely from month to month, would enroll in FEHB if it were available. ...
[T]his expansion would generate costs to the Federal government of well below the threshold for economic significance, which is $100 million. ...
