[ExI] [Exl] Tap tap.. Hello? Is this thing on? (Or Zombie Apocalypse!)

[Henry Rivera]

Spike wrote:
   exempts congress from
> the healthcare law that they are imposing on the rest of us.  So we see the
> Senate willing to send the government into default in order to impose the
> healthcare law on the citizens and simultaneously exempt themselves from
> that law.

I keep hearing this on TV, so I'm not just critiquing Spike. Characterizing "the exemption" this way is misleading. This exemption you refer to is the one that allows anyone with health insurance provided through their employer to be exempt from having to buy (what would be additional) insurance. You know, the idea is that everyone needs to be insured--no one is really exempt. Full time Federal employees including Congressional staff, just like Google and other organizational employees, have insurance provided through their employer. Since they thus have insurance, of course the mandate that they buy insurance doesn't apply. If you are suggesting Federal employees who happen to work on Capital Hill should be singled out and not be allowed to get insurance through their employer, I disagree. And where do you draw the line? Would congressional staffers who work in their home districts not be able to get insurance through their employer? What about Executive Branch employees? How about DOD employees? Many would leave the public sector if their benefits were comprised as such not because the govt healthcare they'd have to buy would be bad, but because they could get a job in the private sector that provided this benefit. 
-Henry
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