Senators seek to force Congress, political appointees out of FEHBP

[The Straight Story]

Senators seek to force Congress, political appointees out of FEHBP


Four Republican senators have joined forces to push a proposal that would require high-level federal officials, including members of Congress and Obama administration political appointees, to leave the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program and join a new public option health system if Congress creates one.

Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Richard Burr of North Carolina and David Vitter of Louisiana introduced the measure Monday as an amendment to health care legislation pending in the Senate.

"Notwithstanding any other provision of law, all federal officers shall be enrolled in the community health insurance option when established," the amendment states. Federal officers are defined in the provision as the president, vice president, political appointees, members of Congress and congressional staffers.


"The president, members of Congress and others in our government can demonstrate leadership and confidence in the public option by enrolling themselves in the program," Coburn said. "While I oppose the public option, Republicans and Democrats can agree that we should live under the laws we pass. I can also think of no better way to ensure that the public option is responsive to our citizens than by having the politicians in charge of the system enrolled in the same program."

http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=44183&dcn=todaysnews

[BlueIdaho]

1. Good.

Every elected official should have to live with the shit they force on the rest of us and that includes Social Security too. Maybe that's one way to get some decent legislation passed in this country.

edit = typo

[laughingliberal]

7. Yes, I'd bet if Bernanke was forced to rely on Medicare he would not be looking at cutting the

benefit.

[aquart]

2. You betcha.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. My God, a Republican actually gets it right.

[Mass]

5. Not really. They wanted to embarass Democrats. They were very surprised when Dems

asked to cosponsor their amendment. Let be sure it will die quickly now.

[Mass]

4. They were very surprised to see Democrats calling their bluff.

[spanone]

6. .

r

[BrklynLiberal]

8. What a great idea....

Are the repukes really so stupid that they did not realize that they were setting themselves up for this??

[Ocracoker16]

9. Let me tell you what these Repukes are really trying to achieve

The important thing to know is that they are trying to defeat public option. They are trying to scare senators into voting against a public option. Senators are very cozy with their FEHBP benefits. They want to hold onto them, because they are far superior to any public option. These Repukes are proposing an ammendment requiring them to be part of the public option so that the senators will vote against the public option in order to make sure they get to keep their FEHBP benefits.

This an underhanded move by these Repukes. They know that their colleaugues would put their interests first and vote against the public option if it had this ammendment attached. The result would be that the public option would not pass. The public option without this ammendment would be much more likely to pass, because the senators could rationalize voting for the public option by telling themselves that they had nothing to lose since they wouldn't have to participate in it. They wouldn't have to worry about ending up with a smaller piece of pie.

[BrklynLiberal]

10. I wonder if they truly believe they could get away with that..

[Lyric]

11. But the flipside that could come back to bite them in the ass is that

if Congresspeople know that THEY have to put up with whatever public option they create, then might they not be more inclined to make it a good option rather than a crappy, watered-down option?