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Redstate
David
Vitter Fights Back Against
Obamacare
By Erick Erickson
August 7th, 2013
I
reported yesterday that Senate
Republicans and Democrats have declared truce over Obamacare as it
relates to
congressional staffers and members of Congress themselves. Republicans
have
decided they will not attack Democrats because they want the exemption
too.
One
member of Congress who is not
only enraged by this, but is willing to do something about it, is
Louisiana
Senator David Vitter. This afternoon he has mailed letters to House and
Senate
Leaders as well as President Obama, demanding that Congress be treated
like
everyone else with no exemptions or carve outs for congressional staff.
I
hope he will hold strong and
stand with Senator Mike Lee to oppose funding Obamacare in the
continuing
resolution. He signed Mike Lee’s letter so I expect we won’t have to
worry
about that at all. Good for David Vitter taking the lead on this.
His
letters are below.
Speaker
of the House John Boehner
(R-Ohio)
Senate
Majority Leader Harry Reid
(D-Nev.)
House
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi
(D-Calif.)
Senate
Minority Leader Mitch
McConnell (R-Ky.)
Dear
Congressional Leaders:
I
write in strong opposition to the
Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) recent action to “fix” Obamacare
for
Members of Congress and their staffs without doing the same for the
American
people. I urge you to undo this action legislatively as soon as we
return to
session in September so that Congress stands with the American people
and
doesn’t treat itself like a higher, select ruling class.
The
Obamacare statute states very
clearly that all Members of Congress and their staffs are to procure
their
health insurance through the Obamacare Exchange. Just as clearly, it
does not
reconstitute government support of their present coverage under the
separate
Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan (FEHBP) as payment toward the
Exchange.
Furthermore, no ordinary American at that income level buying on the
Exchange
would receive any government subsidy, much less one worth approximately
$5,000
for an individual or $10,000 for a family, under the OPM rule for
Congress
only. This bailout simply has been pulled out of thin air under intense
and,
sadly, bipartisan political pressure.
The
provision of the OPM rule that
allows individual Members of Congress to define what staff is even
covered at
all is particularly offensive and obnoxious. It’s obviously intended to
allow
for a significant portion of congressional staff, like leadership
staff, to be
exempted from even having to deal with the Exchange at all,
notwithstanding the
whopping subsidy that the rule creates...
Read
the rest of the article at
Redstate
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