U.S. Congressman Greg Walden was co-sponsor of legislation to exempt these workers from the employer mandate.

"I'm glad the IRS made a good decision for once when it comes to Obamacare.  Look, if they had not made this decision, volunteer firefighter departments all across the rural West and our district specifically would have been affected.  They would have had to count volunteers as if they would paid, full time employees.  We know what kind of cost that would have  put on top of these fire departments they could not have borne it."

Nealry 90 percent of Oregon's fire deparments are either all volunteer or mostly volunteer.