[jeremy1375]

Nothing has changed since then. It's the argument that lawmakers are exempt from something important that is the issue.

Senator Chuck Grassley wrote the amendment that takes away the government health plan benefit from federal lawmakers instead requiring them to get their insurance from the exchanges. What he forgot to do was include legislation that describes how the federal government should pay for the exchange insurance since the exchanges were only designed for small businesses and individuals.

The "exemption" that was being sought by some after was the ability to keep their government health plan. What wound up happening was the federal government would kick in the same amount of money towards the exchange insurance as went toward the government plan. That also was considered an "exemption" by some because technically only a small business could do that under the law.

The whole thing that was called the "exemption" amounted to this - lawmakers lost access to their government health plan and instead had to get their health insurance benefits from the exchange. There's really nothing controversial about that.