Posted on 04/25/2013 8:23:59 PM PDT by Sequoyah101
No argument for Obamacare’s repeal can top the simple fact that Members of Congress do not want it to apply to them.
Today’s Politico reports that the House and Senate congressional leadership—both Democrats and Republicans working in cahoots with Obama Administration officials—have been secretly negotiating for months trying to find a way to exempt Members of Congress and their staffs from being forced into Obamacare’s health insurance exchanges.
Beginning on January 1, 2014, these exchanges, to be run by the federal government or the states (under federal rules) will offer federally “qualified” insurance coverage for millions of Americans. Ordinary Americans must either sign up or face a tax penalty. Senator Max Baucus (D–MT), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, has now famously described the Obama’s Administration’s implementation of this process as an oncoming “train wreck,” and Henry Chao, an Administration official involved with the implementation of the law, just hopes that Americans can avoid a “third-world experience.”
According to the Politico story, there are two major reasons why Members of Congress want to exempt themselves and their staffs from the terms and conditions of the law:
They fear higher health care costs. Congressional leaders fear that being forced into the Obamacare exchanges will result in higher health care costs for themselves and their families and their aides. “The problem stems from whether members and aides set to enter the exchanges would have their health insurance premiums subsidized by their employer—in this case the federal government.” This is also true for millions of ordinary Americans. They could also lose their employer-based coverage, and they could also face higher costs. Also contrary to the President’s promises, independent analysts expect health insurance premiums to rise sharply, particularly for younger workers and their families. They fear the impact on Capitol Hill employment. “There is concern in some quarters that the provision requiring lawmakers and staffers to join the exchanges, if it isn’t revised, could lead to a ‘brain drain’ on Capitol Hill, as several sources close to the talks put it.” Given the insane spending and record deficits, it’s hard to imagine how a Capitol Hill “brain drain” could produce even worse government. But ordinary Americans who run businesses are also faced with anxieties, particularly whether they will be able to hire or retain valued employees or reduce full-time workers to part-time employees in order to avoid Obamacare’s mandatory costs.
For veteran Capitol Hill watchers, shenanigans behind closed doors to enable Congress and its staffers to escape Obamacare come as no surprise. After all, the national health care law was fashioned through repulsive backroom dealing (the “Cornhusker Kickback,” the “Louisiana Purchase,” etc.) that set a record for arrogance and contempt of popular opinion. Favored businesses and unions got special exemptions (more than 1,200 waivers) from Obamacare’s insurance rules. So consider today’s Politico revelation just marquee for a rerun of a tiresome old movie: one set of rules for Congress and another set of rules for the rest of us.
If Congress quietly wants to exempt itself from Obamacare, that’s great—so long as it includes the rest of us in that midnight amendment.
They passed it, it’s OK for the proles but they don’t like it for themselves.
Way to go critters! That pretty much conclusively confirms what we think.
I have other thoughts and words but they are banable.
I don’t doubt it.
Was it you who said it was time for pitchforks? I’m not sure about the pitchforks, but you can count me in for a little tar and feathers.
Well of course! They want to be exempt from every damn thing they force down the common Citizens throat. Thugs, one and all!!!!!
They signed it before they read it. They should EAT every dagumed page with an Obama pile between the sheets!
*ahem*... so to speak.
bkmk
Gee, who DIDN'T see this coming?? If it's such a great system, why WOULDN'T they want in on it!?
Society used to be a triangle sitting on its base. Ideally, at least for the dhimmis, it would be a triangle balanced on its point—with most people doing well at the top and very few at the bottom. If you follow that abstraction.
Of course, that’s a utopia: an ‘unplace’; it doesn’t exist/is impossible.
We’ve got a diamond shape, with most of us falling somewhere in the middle of the upper triangle resting on an inverted triangle.
So the Congress, near the top, exempts itself. Remember Nanzi rhapsodizing a couple years ago about how the ‘Affordable Care’s act would ‘free artists and musicians to live and create w/o fear ‘... blah blab?
She was talking about the grown men you see walking around downtown and playing roundball in the middle of the day/week. And now herself. Wouldn’t want to undermine their dignity, so yeah—only a portion of the population will pay premiums and penalties. That’s you and me.
The guys they were hoping had bombed their fellow Americans.
So tighten your belts and pay up, kulaks.
As a postscript (past my bedtime) I meant to include: I don’t have the numbers, but I don’t think they really do either, for now. They’re still ginning-up the (new, improved & friendly!) IRS to make sure we comply.
But like pornography—’I know it when I see it’—I can recognize a massive Solyndra-like Ponzi scheme when I see it. It’s simply unsustainable. Too much dead-weight in the wagon and not enough horses.
What should make Americans the angriest, I think, is that they know it too.
Yes, they all need to go.
hopefulyl we can get a republican presdient next term with enough backbone and get enough senators with backbones to pass a mandate outlawing universal health care forever
politicians are exempt, they keep their cadillac plans. it’s for their staff they’re trying to do this.
In an oligarchy such as ours, laws are only for the Little People.
The real issue is Obamacare itself.
It must be repealed.
I’m sure Republicans in Congress will raise a fuss and look good.
THIS IS A KARL ROVE EMOTIONAL WEDGE ISSUE MOMENT.....
REPEAL OBAMACARE IN ITS ENTIRETY AND IMMEDIATELY BALANCE THE BUDGET, REPUBLICANS. NO EMOTIONAL DIVERSIONS.
Thanks.
BTTT
Dear Lord, share Your strength.
Tatt
Where is that picture of Archeologists discover the first politician = picture of the pelvic region with the skull inside. Because everyone knows politician have to undo their pants in order to speak because they have their heads up their posterior region. No wonder someone like Obama always has flies around his exposed face.
It is like they took their own advice, and decided to find out what was in the Bill after they voted on it. Great plan Dims.
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