“The president will participate in the exchange,” an administration spokesman told USA Today at the time, rejecting Republican efforts to compel the president to do so by law.

It would be a purely symbolic gesture — much like his decision to cast the first early ballot by a sitting president last year — in part because he’ll still have access to the White House Medical Unit and the official physician to the president, an office that has served every executive since the Revolution. According to a White House description of the medical unit, the office “provides worldwide emergency action response and comprehensive medical care to the president, the vice president and their families.”…

But the exchanges aren’t intended for people like the president. They’re designed for people who don’t get health coverage on the job. Most people in the exchanges will be there for that reason — and they can’t tap into the subsidies if they have another option.