Obama has also bravely opted himself out of his exemption, at least by his own statement. It really doesn't matter. What matters is that these altruistic people who are shoving their conception of health care down our throats (for our own good, of course) took the trouble to exempt themselves (and the President) in the legislation. There's no excuse for that. Not only were members of Congress is "leadership" positions exempted, but their staffs (who actually drafted the bill) were included in the exemption.
Grassley's amendment to remove this exemption was defeated on a party-line vote. Just more altruism, I'm sure.