California minimum wage hike hits L.A. apparel industry: 'The exodus has begun'

California’s $15 Minimum Wage Hike Costs UC Berkeley Jobs https://t.co/k7M4aHqC0e

— Legal Insurrection (@LegInsurrection) April 18, 2016

‘Fleeing another liberal paradise’: Pink slips in Calif. blamed on ‘successful’ #FightFor15 https://t.co/Al2JXuIVqT

— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) April 16, 2016

California minimum wage hike hits L.A. apparel industry: 'The exodus has begun' https://t.co/JYqlrY5Vqm

— L.A. Times Biz News (@latimesbiz) April 15, 2016

Turns out CA #LivingWage is creating jobs. In other states and countries. https://t.co/hloxu2zusQ

— Founders Intent:10th (@FoundersIntent) April 16, 2016

Prepare for disaster: California's new minimum wage will devastate 1/3 of the state https://t.co/R2xnsTPxHz pic.twitter.com/VNDBTwO2yY

— Forbes (@Forbes) April 10, 2016

Laugh-or-cry irony. #GoodForMeNotForThee https://t.co/EL9e7He7rb

— Andrew Klavan (@andrewklavan) April 10, 2016

Union leaders wrote a letter to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, warning of “nightmare scenarios” for millions of union workers' health plans if Obamacare is not changed. “Congress wrote this law; we voted for you,” they wrote. “We have a problem; you need to fix it.”

◼ Health and Human Services quietly giving unions Obamacare fix - Susan Crabtree/Washington Examiner

he Obama administration has found a way to give unions relief from an Obamacare tax nearly three weeks after Republicans rejected a Democratic push to include the labor carve-out in the latest budget deal.

The Department of Health and Human Services quietly released a final rule last week that includes an intention to exempt some union insurance plans from a substantial new tax known as the reinsurance fee.

As part of Obamacare, the tax was supposed to be levied against all insurance plans to share the risk for insurers taking on the sickest patients next year.

...“It's outrageous that the Obama administration is ignoring the plain language of the law he insisted on to deliver another bailout to the union bosses,” said Fred Wszolek, spokesman of the Workforce Fairness Institute. “Either follow the law and tax every insurance plan, or repeal the whole thing, but there's no legal basis for another expensive favor for big labor.”

The reinsurance fee is $63 per person covered by an insurance plan per year, and is expected to raise $25 billion over three years. Exempting unions in 2015 and 2016 from the tax would protect their plans from taking a major hit, although they would have to pay it in 2014, when the tax will be the greatest during the first year Obamacare is in effect.

HHS didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Possible ObamaCare compromise: Let’s force government employees to fend for themselves on the exchanges

◼ Remember how, a few months ago, members of Congress were panicked that their staffers would start quitting en masse this fall thanks to an O-Care rule that Chuck Grassley inserted into the final bill in 2010? - Allahpundit/HotAir

...Our leader, knowing that he could ill afford any more discontent on the Hill over his pet boondoggle and confident that he can suspend or ignore whichever ObamaCare provisions he chooses, got the Office of Personnel and Management to issue a new regulation stating that subsidies would continue for federal staffers even after they bought a new health-care plan on the exchange. Crisis averted!

Or is it? Here’s Paul suggesting that, in lieu of defunding, one of the things the GOP could insist on in a compromise is making sure all federal employees have to live with O-Care, warts and all....The issue may be too small-ball for most defunders’ liking given their ambitions to stop the entire law cold (which won’t happen anyway), but the politics of it would be excruciating for Democrats.