YES! A thousand times yes!
I have long wondered why Congress gets to exempt itself from things like Obamacare.
If it’s such a good program, why did you have to vote to remove yourselves and your families?
It’s a downright scam, and it looks like President Trump may be looking to put a stop to it. As well he should.
Not only is it wrong, but it’s illegal. Congress is not supposed to make any law that applies to them and not to everyone else. But that’s what they’re doing.
It looks like President Trump has finally had enough, and we couldn’t agree with him more:
If a new HealthCare Bill is not approved quickly, BAILOUTS for Insurance Companies and BAILOUTS for Members of Congress will end very soon!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2017
Here is more, from The Washington Times:
With a single new tweet, President Trump set official Washington abuzz Saturday afternoon: “If a new Health Care Bill is not approved quickly, BAILOUTS for Insurance Companies and BAILOUTS for members of Congress will end very soon!”
While most Democrats and the media – but I repeat myself – wailed publicly about the first phrase of that tweet, reading it to mean the president was threatening to cut off the billions of dollars in illegal “cost-sharing reduction” payments to insurance companies, many members of Congress of both parties recognized the more ominous implied threat inherent in the second phrase – an end to Congress‘ illegal gravy train of subsidies to pay for their health care premiums.
The president is referring, of course, to the illegal employer subsidies – valued at roughly $6,000 for an individual policy, and $12,000 for a family policy – paid to the approximately 12,000 members and staff who purchase their health care insurance on the District of Columbia small business exchange.
These subsidy payments are a direct violation of not just the spirit, but the letter of the Affordable Care Act, which required Members and their staffs to leave their generous Federal Employee Health Benefit Program plans and instead purchase their health insurance through the Obamacare exchanges.
They receive these subsidy payments only as the result of a conspiracy and a subterfuge – acting at the behest of congressional leaders of both parties and then-President Obama, two unknown congressional officials fraudulently signed paperwork declaring Congress to be a “small business” that employs fewer than 50 people, so members of Congress and their staffs could purchase their insurance on the D.C. small business exchange (where employers are allowed to provide a subsidy toward the purchase of insurance), rather than an individual exchange (where subsidy payments are not allowed).
This subterfuge exempts Congress and its staff from being treated under the law the way everyone else in the country who is required to purchase insurance on the Obamacare exchanges is treated.
In this area, Congress, working with then-President Obama, has literally set itself above the law. In this sense, it has exempted itself from the law.
In my years of activism with the tea party, I can think of no other issue that so infuriates grassroots activists.
In fact, in my years of activism with the tea party, I can think of no better issue that unites liberals, moderates, and conservatives. We may disagree about Obamacare – but we all agree that this illegal exemption is wrong.
What makes America different from every other country, we believe, is that in America, no one is above the law. Yet here, on this most odious of laws, Congress and President Obama acted in concert to set two different standards of treatment – Congress and its staff would be exempt from what was required of them under the law, while everyone else would be held to a higher (and more expensive) standard.
In my years of activism with the tea party, I can think of no other issue on which there have been so many lies told by members of Congress and their staffs.
Tea Party Patriots activists have been calling congressional offices for years, inquiring as to whether or not individual members have followed the letter of the law. They have regularly been told it is “untrue” that Congress is exempt from the law, that this entire line of reasoning is “crazy,” “made up,” “lies,” etc.
But now President Trump is considering whether or not he should, with a simple directive to the Office of Personnel Management, overturn the illegal special exemption. And Tea Party Patriots supporters are calling the White House at (202) 456-1414 and urging the president to remove Congress‘ illegal special exemption. Many are getting full mailboxes when they make phone calls so in addition to the calls, they are leaving emails through whitehouse.gov/contact.
Based on his Saturday tweet, President Trump is thinking of overturning the illegal special exemption as an added inducement to Congress, so that they’ll be more personally incentivized to continue working to repeal Obamacare.
Please SHARE to support Trump telling Congress to STOP THIS illegal activity!
Congress must use the same plan we all have to use! Period, point blank.
If you took away their right to exempt their families, I think we’d all see things change real quick.
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