Rand Paul wants to move feds into Obamacare

Federal employees found out that their health insurance premiums were going up an average of 3.4 percent for fiscal year 2014. That may seem like bad news, but if one lawmaker has his way, annual single-digit premium increases under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan might be fondly remembered as the good old days.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) announced plans to propose a constitutional amendment that would, among other things, require federal employees to purchase health insurance on exchanges created by the 2010 health care law. Details of the proposal were not available, but it appears that it would eliminate a raft of benefits enjoyed by feds, including the subsidy that helps pay about 72 percent of federal employees' insurance premiums.

Paul singled out for special mention Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who wrote the 2012 opinion in NFIB v. Sebelius that upheld the law.

"My amendment says basically that everybody, including Justice Roberts -- who seems to be such a fan of Obamacare -- gets it too," Paul told the Daily Caller, a conservative news website. "See, right now, Justice Roberts is still continuing to have federal employee health insurance subsidized by the taxpayer. And if he likes Obamacare so much, I'm going to give him an amendment that gives Obamacare to Justice Roberts."

Paul's proposal comes more than a month after the Office of Personnel Management announced that members of Congress and their staffs, who are required to buy health insurances via exchanges under a provision of the law, will obtain premium support from their employers -- the government. Private employers are specifically barred by the law from providing any such subsidy. The OPM provided the special exemption after fears that the elimination of premium support would create a wave of resignations among congressional staffers.