Hat tip: Yuval Levin at The Corner
To quote House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), “[W]e have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” One of the interesting things we have learned about the 2,000+ page monstrosity passed by Congressional Democrats has to do with health care access for Congressional staff. According to David Freddoso in the Examiner,
Obamacare was intended, eventually, to push members of Congress and their staff out of the federal employees' health care plan and into the exchanges created by the law. The problem is, those exchanges won't exist for some time. And apparently due to an omission, the ban on offering the federal plan to Capitol Hill employees begins immediately.
The law states that "the only health plans that the Federal Government may make available to Members of Congress and congressional staff" are plans created under Obamacare or offered in its exchanges. According to a 13-page report from the Congressional Research Service, prepared a week after Obamacare's passage, this might mean that your congressman has no health coverage.
It's not exactly clear, because the law also contains a clause stating that no one can be forced to give up coverage they already have. "It is difficult to predict which provision a court would find controlling," CRS notes. At the very least, new hires on the Hill and new congressman appear to be out of luck when it comes to health coverage.
If this is true, it’s quite a testament as to how Democrats have not read their own legislation. As an aside, doesn’t it make you wonder how well Gerry Connolly (D-VA-11) represents all those Federal employees who are his constituents?
So anyway, let’s hope that Republicans increase their majorities over the next couple of election cycles to majorities in both Houses of Congress.. Even better, let’s get a Republican elected President in 2012. So what happens if Democrats try to block repeal of ObamaCare? Maybe the new President, leading a bunch of healthcare bureaucrats he inherited from Obama, can withhold health benefits from Members of Congress and their staff until obstructionist Democrats agree to repeal Obama’s socialized medicine and replace it with a superior free-market system. Isn’t that evil?
Hey, a guy can dream, right?
