Capitol Hill Rats Desert Sinking Ship of State: Obamacare is “Too Expensive”
It seems that every cloud does have a silver lining. The Politico reports dozens of defections: in the Senate and in the House, staffers and aides are retiring, have either handed in their notices or are preparing to do so before full implementation of the Affordable Care Act. According to everyone willing or unwilling to go on the record, Affordable Care isn’t affordable: “It’s too expensive.”
The Politico, although they credit Republicans with opposing the coming healthcare catastrophe from the outset, makes hay of the fact that Democrats and Republicans, both, “are taking the issue seriously”: “Government-subsidized premiums will disappear at the end of the year under a provision in the health care law that nudges aides and lawmakers onto the government health care exchanges, which could make their benefits exorbitantly expensive.”
But, provided they have put in enough time, anyone, be they staffers or elected officials, would keep their current, federally funded “Cadillac Healthcare Plan” if they blow Capitol Hill before the Affordable Health Act kicks in. The situation has created quite a stir and has kick-started Democrat and Republican legislators into high gear on their own behalf. Action they have been unwilling to take for the rest of the country.
The Politico was, unwittingly, comical when it claimed that a mass Exodus of Capitol Hill personnel would create a “brain drain,” just as Congress was facing “a slew of weighty issues — like fights over the Tax Code and immigration reform.” As if these matters had just popped out from behind a rock to surprise them. What isn’t so funny is that the government seems to be planning an exemption for these privileged few.
Rep. John Larson, a Connecticut Democrat who had a leadership role in Congress when the Affordable Care Act was passed, champions a resolution tailored for the political class. He is convinced that it will happen: “If not, I think we should begin an immediate amicus brief to say, ‘Listen this is simply not fair to these employees’… They are federal employees.”