One of the recent twists in the D.C. health reform saga is a revelation that certain federal employees – including top administration officials and senior congressional staff-are exempt from the new health care system.
According to Politico, rank-and-file federal employees will be kicked out of their existing health care plan – the Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan – and forced to participate in the new government-run health care exchanges. But “professional committee staff, joint committee staff, some shared staff, as well as potentially those staff employed by leadership offices” appear to be exempt from the bill’s mandate since they aren’t listed alongside other federal employees on page 158 of the bill.
What’s worse, the loophole appears to have been created intentionally.
Last year, Sen. Charles Grassley tried to address the issue by changing the bill’s language in committee to mandate that top administration officials participate in the exchanges. But when the Senate bill came to the floor, the language had been removed and subsequent efforts to amend the bill on the floor were rebuffed.
From the start, the government’s health care reform plan has been characterized as expensive and intrusive, but this latest wrinkle proves it to be overly paternalistic as well. The very notion that we would have officials writing bills that they themselves are not subject to goes against a government for the people, by the people.
– James Quintero