By Michelle Ye Hee Lee @ The Washington Post, April 15

[....] The ACA requires members of Congress and many congressional staffers to leave the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program and join the health-care exchanges in the District Through the federal plan, lawmakers and their staff members had about 70 percent of their insurance premiums covered by the federal government.

But members and their staff members generally make too much money to qualify for subsidies in the exchanges, which were intended for people who previously did not get insurance from employers. So the Obama administration made an exception that allowed them to use the D.C. small-business exchange to receive health-care stipends from their employer (the federal government).

Yes, you read that correctly. The law allows individual congressional offices to be counted as small businesses of 50 or fewer employees.

On the exchanges, members and staff members get an employer (i.e., taxpayer) contribution of 72 percent for their premiums. So this allowed them to receive a similar subsidy as they did under the federal health plan. Some members say they donate to charity an amount equivalent to the taxpayer-funded subsidy.

Not all staffers use the small-business exchange. Staff members on congressional committees may be covered under the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program. (We dug into this in depth here.) [....]