Obama Uses Executive Order To Reverse Sequester Cuts To Obamacare Subsides

In another example of his governing by executive fiat President Obama is reversing  ObamaCare's cost-sharing subsidies from the cuts planned under the  budget sequester.

These cost-sharing subsidies are only available to people earning less than 250 percent of the federal poverty level (about $29,000 for a single person, or $59,600 for a family of four) who purchase silver-level plans on Obamacare exchanges.

In silver plans, insurers cover about 70 percent of health care costs. The cost-sharing reductions are automatically applied to the plans to help with out-of-pocket costs, so people purchasing them might not even notice they're getting the subsidy.

The cost-sharing subsidies were supposed to be cut by about $290 million in 2014, according to estimates from the Office of Management and Budget. However, the administration says those automatic cuts won't apply to cost-sharing subsidies in 2015, according to a sequester report issued Monday by OMB. However, it wasn’t noticed until yesterday by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

The move is the latest executive action by the Obama administration to avoid bad consequences for the healthcare law. Last year, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said the subsidies would face a roughly 7 percent cut under sequestration.

The about-face was first discovered by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which said the move "could be considered a big win" for ObamaCare.

"Over the coming ten years, this exemption effectively translates to about $10 billion in restored cost-sharing subsidies," wrote research director Loren Adler.

The payments, which go directly to insurance companies, are intended to help low-income people decrease spending on medical co-pays, deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs.

Here's a way to save money, with this President ruling by executive fiat, do we really need to pay congress?