The various ruling councils of several native American Indian tribes are protesting Obamacare because it will force them to pay for heatlhcare of their employees. Tribal leaders claim that it must be some sort of “misinterpretation” of the law that will cost them millions of dollars.
The tribes are confused because Obamacare exempted individual American Indians from being forced to get insurance or face IRS fines like the rest of us face but didn’t exempt tribal organizations that employee people from being forced to give healthcare insurance.
Now the Indians want to be cut free from Obamacare altogether.
Congress did not, however, exempt Native American tribal governments from Obamacare’s employer mandate, which is already in effect for large employers and goes into effect for small businesses with between 50 and 99 employees next year. Now, tribal governments are beginning to realize the effects the employer mandate could have on reservations’ economies and the lives of their employees.
Under the employer mandate, businesses with more than 50 full-time employees—classified as those working more than 30 hours each work—are required to provide health insurance to their employees. Companies that fail to abide by the employer mandate are required to pay a fine of $2,000 per full-time employee.
The law also states that individuals with access to coverage independent of the exchange cannot get the subsidies available on the exchange, meaning that Native Americans like Bishop who have access to employer-sponsored coverage cannot continue purchasing plans on the exchange and receive their subsidies.
“This is what happens when Congress short circuits regular order, and doesn’t go through the relevant committees, and take the time to mark it up, and debate it the right way, and rush a complicated bill through,” Ed Haislmaier, senior research fellow in health policy studies at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal.
So, do you think Native Americans deserve all sorts of exemptions? Or should they be treated like the rest of us?
Regardless of what you think on that matter, what this controversy does show is that Obama is a liar when he said that this law was good for all Americans. If Obamacare is so great, why did he and the Democrats try to exempt Indian peoples?