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GOP Rep Urges Trump to End Lawmakers' Healthcare Subsidies

August 1, 2017

A freshman GOP congressman said Tuesday he would like to President Donald Trump follow through on his threat to end healthcare subsidies for lawmakers.

"President Trump is right: the subsidies must be eliminated to incentivize members of Congress to keep their promise and repeal Obamacare," Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., said in a statement posted on his website Tuesday. "Only then, will the American people – and their Representatives – see a return to affordable healthcare premiums."

Trump mentioned the subsidies in a tweet over the weekend, saying he would end "bailouts" for insurance companies and lawmakers on Capitol Hill if efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare continue to founder.

Republicans added an amendment to Obamacare — officially known as the Affordable Care Act — in 2010 that requires members of Congress to buy insurance through the exchanges set up by the law. But since their salaries are too high to get subsidies for premiums, the Obama White House allowed them and members of their staffs to receive funds to purchase insurance on the District of Columbia exchange.

Biggs, a staunch Obamacare opponent, has refused that subsidy, telling the House payroll administrator to take the amount out of his paycheck and return it to the treasury, The Hill reported.

"I would like to request that the government's automatic contribution to my healthcare be returned to the Treasury in the amount of the government contribution," Biggs wrote. "Please take the appropriate amount from my paycheck each month."

Congress too often exempts itself from laws it imposes on the American people, Biggs said.

"After Democrats passed Obamacare in the dead of night, multiple loopholes were exploited so that members of Congress did not have to feel the real economic pain of everyday Americans when paying for their healthcare premiums," he wrote. "Though I have never wanted Obamacare, nor does a day go by when I do not fight against Obamacare, I will not take a subsidy that is not afforded to my constituents."