Congress’ illegal and egregious Obamacare exemption, explained

The officials who implemented this scheme betrayed its illegality, and likely violated criminal laws, when they knowingly and repeatedly made false statements to skirt the legal barriers in their way.

Obamacare prohibits employers with more than 100 employees from participating in its small-business exchanges. For calendar year 2014, however, both federal and D.C. law prohibited employers with more than 50 employees from participating in D.C.’s small-business exchange. Obviously, neither the House of Representatives nor the Senate qualifies. The House has 435 voting members. The Senate has 100 senators. Each chamber employs thousands upon thousands of staff.

Yet a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the watchdog group Judicial Watch revealed that in Nov. 2013, unknown House and Senate officials filed applications with D.C.’s small-business exchange in which they falsely attested the House has only 45 members, and the Senate only 45 employees total—each just under the statutory limit.