Posted on 08/02/2013 5:06:43 AM PDT by IbJensen
For the past few months, members of Congress and their staffs have been discussing behind closed doors the worrying proposition that they will be forced off their popular health insurance program and onto the federal insurance exchanges set up under Obamacare.
Those concerns reached a fevered pitch this week as President Obama, while making a rare visit to Capitol Hill, assured lawmakers that they and their staffs wouldn’t be foisted onto the same health exchange as millions of Americans. Then late last night, news broke that Obama had “solved” the problem, although no details were available.
Obama and many in Congress are hoping that the Office of Personnel Management can somehow find a way to legally continue paying for members’ health benefits after they lose their current Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) coverage and instead have to get coverage through the new exchanges.
But not so fast, say two Heritage Foundation health scholars and a former general counsel of the OPM. The three health benefit experts scoured Obamacare’s rules, along with other relevant statutes, and found nothing in the law that gives OPM the authority to pay the government’ contributions to any health plan that is outside of the FEHBP.
>>> Read the Full Report: No Easy Escape for Congress
In other words, members of Congress and their staff will lose the health insurance they like—breaking a big promise from Obama—unless Congress passes another law to preserve its own current coverage. That’s something they have so far been unwilling to do for their constituents, millions of whom are also facing the prospect of losing their current coverage.
“There does not seem to be any way that OPM [and the Obama Administration] can rescue Members of Congress and their staffs,” Heritage’s new report concludes.
Lawmakers and their staffs could keep their coverage by repealing a section of Obamacare, but at what political price?
“Of course, Congress could enact legislative changes,” the report notes. “The problem for Congress, however, is that adopting any possible legislative solution would be viewed by many of their constituents as an act of self-dealing special treatment.”
Why should the people’s representatives get special treatment? Maybe they should have read the health law more carefully before they voted for it. Regardless, it would be a disservice to millions of hard-working Americans and their families for the Administration or Congress to jam through special favors rather than repeal an unpopular, unworkable, and unaffordable law.
With less than two months left until enrollment opens for Obamacare’s insurance exchanges, now is the time for Americans to speak out against the unfair political maneuverings and out-of-control spending within Obamacare.
Heritage’s sister organization Heritage Action will host town-hall meetings this month in nine cities across America. Learn more about the “Defund Obamacare Tour” and find out how you can make your voice heard.
With scandal upon scandal piling up as proof that this phony mystery man in the White Hut is incapable of governing a kennel, let alone a once great nation, it's an opportunity to dethrone this imbecile and slash the bureaucracy including the bloated staffs of this incompetent one party Congress.
“All Equal under the Law”???
What law?
Whose “law”?
I thought there was a non-severability clause in Obamacare, and that if one part of it is repealed, the entire law is repealed.
Of course, the law as written means nothing...
Misery LOVES company, you rat-bastages! Congress passed it, and by goodness, they’d damn well better have to live with it.
Thanks to Obama-Care, I lost my “gold plated” plan, which is going to wind up costing me about an additional $4000 this year (I’ve got a major surgery coming up).
You hear about “unintended consequences,” but in this case, even though we only knew little bits and pieces of Obama-Care before SanFranNan bothered to look at it (after having passed it), it was obvious from the very beginning that it was going to be a disaster, designed from the start to bring chaos to the system, in order to collapse it - allowing people to cry to the government, “come and save me! Give me government run health care!”
From the very beginning, I said, “if you want to see what government run health care looks like, take a close look at the VA system.” It’s a disaster!
Mark
All Animals are equal, but some Animals are more equal than others....
Severability has to do with a court striking down a part of a statute. The law-making body can write laws as it pleases.
The law is written so that the head of HHS has almost unlimited powers to ‘interpret”the law. The law means whatever Kathleen Sibelius says it means.
And may the bird of paradise fly up your nose you miserable excuse for a human being. Damn you and damn the paps that gave you suck!
“Congress passed it”
When?
This is so discouraging
If any one caught the testimony of a Ms. McMahon, a deputy sec. in the Treasury Dept.,( (aired on C-Span at 4:00 AM Wed.) in front of Chairman Issa’s committee these reports wouldn’t surprise you. She did not give one cogent answer to the ample evidence that the IRS is putting in place anything Obama wants, with no basis in the law Congress passed.
They could begin the process of eliminating all critics of ObamaCare from access to physicians and hospitals, and Congress would apparently whine a little but would let it be implemented. That hearing made it clear that we no longer live in a free country, in case the gullible still want to believe that.
When?
Just before Barky signed it into law, long before he decided to illegally "rewrite" the law, by changing the employer mandate date...
The executive branch of the government is completely lawless.
Mark
I think it is now safe to say that Bart Stupak destroyed America.
What state is he from?
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