NYT: ObamaCare may have accidentally stripped Congress of health coverage

Hot Air ^ | April 12, 2010 | Allahpundit

[Free ThinkerNY]

The perfect ending to a day that saw support for repealing O-Care reach a new high in Rasmussen (58 percent) and support for The One reach a new weekly low in Gallup (47 percent). Turns out that fantastically long, mind-bogglingly complex bills which no one has actually read may create unintended consequences. Remember how they forgot to require insurers to cover kids with preexisting conditions? Oh, and they forgot initially to let young adults be covered by their parents’ insurance until Reid fixed it in reconciliation. Now this. Who knew that when Pelosi said they’d have to pass the bill so that people could find out what’s in it, “people” meant Congress?

I’d call it comedy gold if not for the obvious point raised by the Times: “If they did not know exactly what they were doing to themselves, did lawmakers who wrote and passed the bill fully grasp the details of how it would influence the lives of other Americans?”

The law apparently bars members of Congress from the federal employees health program, on the assumption that lawmakers should join many of their constituents in getting coverage through new state-based markets known as insurance exchanges.

But the research service found that this provision was written in an imprecise, confusing way, so it is not clear when it takes effect.

The new exchanges do not have to be in operation until 2014. But because of a possible “drafting error,” the report says, Congress did not specify an effective date for the section excluding lawmakers from the existing program.

[TBP]

Don’t let it be put back.

[patton]

Gotta tell ya, I think it is funny as heck.

Congress = Morons.