Grant American People ObamaCare Exemption

The amendment's author, Republican Senator Charles Grassley, argued that if Obamacare plans were good enough for the American public, they were good enough for Congress. Democrats, eager to pass the reforms, went along with it.

But it soon became apparent the provision contained no language that allowed federal contributions toward their health plans that cover about 75 percent of the premium costs.

This caused fears that staff would suddenly face sharply higher healthcare costs and leave federal service, causing a "brain drain" on Capitol Hill.

But Wednesday's proposed rule from the OPM, the federal government's human resources agency, means that Congress will escape the most onerous impact of law as it was written.

The OPM said the federal contributions will be allowed to continue for exchange-purchased plans for lawmakers and their staffs, ensuring that those working on Capitol Hill will effectively get the same health contributions as millions of other federal workers who keep their current plan.

Tim Jost, a healthcare law expert at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, said it was probably never Congress' intention to take away federal benefit contributions from Capitol Hill employees, just to push them into them into the exchanges.

"This clarifies what they really intended to do all along," Jost said. "Congress had subjected itself to a requirement that applied to nobody else in the country."