After reading Sen. Tom Carper's letter (Carper: Letter misleading, inaccurate" Cape Gazette 11-5-13) regarding his Obamacare participation and statement that, "there are no special loopholes or exemptions for me," something did not ring true.
His letter challenged Bill Krause, vice mayor,Town of Slaughter Beach, who claimed that senators Carper, Coons and Rep. John Carney voted to exempt themselves from Obamacare. Sen. Carper is correct that they are required to enter the health exchanges and further informs us that "the federal government, our employer, will continue to cover a portion of the cost of our insurance premiums." That's the part that becomes "loophole" territory for me.
According to Gregory Korte, USA Today, Sept. 27, Sen. David Vitter R-La. introduced an unsuccessful amendment to a spending bill to have Congress pay the full cost of their healthcare because, "...for members and any staff who do go into the exchange, they do get to take a big fat taxpayer-funded subsidy with them - a subsidy that's completely unavailable to any other American at that income level going into the exchange."
To be specific, Sen. Carper's (66) reported salary is $174,000 and according to the Kaiser Family Foundation website (kff.org) which works, a 64-year old (max. age in calculator) regular citizen with that income would have an Obamacare approved insurance policy annually costing $16,291 (incl. spouse) with no government subsidy. Glenn Kessler, "Washington Post" Oct. 16, wrote that under their previous program, "lawmakers and their staffs had about 70 percent of their insurance premiums underwritten" which continues under Obamacare.
It is clear that Sen. Carper's subsidy qualifies as a "special loophole" unavailable to Delawareans and is only outdone by the special exemptions for the president, vice president and political appointees from the "law of the land" as the senator calls Obamacare.
It's outrageous.
Geary Foertsch
Rehoboth
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