Rep. Robert Hurt likes his government-subsidized health care
Rep. Robert Hurt, R-Chatham, got elected to office promising to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which his predecessor, former Rep. Tom Periello, had voted for and which critics such as Hurt have dubbed “Obamacare.”
But unlike a handful of his GOP brethren who have turned down government-subsidized health care on principle, Hurt has a different outlook when it comes to his own taxpayer-subsidized health insurance policy.
It’s good for him. Watch how how he explains this to an interviewer for ThinkProgress, who caught up with him last week:
The average monthly taxpayer subsidy for each member of Congress and each staff member in their offices is $700.
Click here for an even more novel justification cited by another Republican in Congress on why he’s keeping his government health care.
And click here for a rant by an “Obamacare” opponent (and Congressman from Maryland) who’s incensed he has to wait a month before his health coverage begins.
And check out this story about how some right-wing loonies in Wyoming want to pass a state law that would make it a felony, punishable by up to 2 years in jail and a $5,000 fine, for any person to try to implement the Affordable Care Act in that state. (They tried to do something similar in New Hampshire, too).
January 9, 2011 - 12:00 PM
Just think how much we could really save and cut down on the government spending. Every person in congress that wants to repel the health care law take a pledge and walk the way you talk.
You mean he has a CHOICE?
Once again it appears from this side of blogsville….its Damn if you do & Damn if you don’t!
Yes Henry he has a choice. He could keep the coverage he had prior to his election. That’s one of the provisions of the Health Reform Act.
#2 Thanks for the evidence that you know virtually nothing about the health care changes, Henry. You probably learned all that nothingness at FR, didn’t you?
Blood Radio called to account? http://theroanoketribune.com/rich_text_37.html
It might be because he understands the difference between employer sponsored healthplans and “government-subsidized’ plans. If he didn’t he’d just be a blogger instead of a congressman.
So he can choose his employer’s health care plan? Wow, that’s different.
I see Dan Radmacher “pounded his steering wheel” when he heard Eric Cantor talk about abolishing 0bamacare. Rad’s buying the same $142 billion figure Dan C. was peddling. The Times must have sent them to the same seminar.
Could someone please tell these liberals that the deficit reduction supposedly came from the tax increases 0bamacare mandated? I mean, Jeez. How dumb can you be to think a massive government spending program can somehow reduce the deficit?
Hurt’s healthplan is subsidized by the taxpayers. Wouldn’t that be a gov’t subsidized health plan? He is a federal employee so his pay and benefits are all gov’t subsidized.
An interesting piece on Forbes.com site. Sorry Dan this is from another blog site.
http://blogs.forbes.com/rickungar/2011/01/06/more-small-businesses-offering-health-care-to-employees-thanks-to-obamacare/
Another interesting piece from the same site that was published in Oct. 2010, but will be interesting to see how the Republicans will cut the size of government as they promised.
http://blogs.forbes.com/rickunger/2010/10/17/why-the-gop-will-never-cut-the-size-of-government/
Sorry the link doesn’t seem to work on the last post so I have pasted the article below. Again, the blogger is Rick Ungar and the blog is on Forbes.com.
Why The GOP Will Never Cut The Size Of Government
Oct. 17 2010 – 9:52 pm | 32,213 views | 3 recommendations | 96 comments
By RICK UNGAR
It’s the dirty little secret that should haunt every conservative candidate with the presence of mind to see a few years into the future.
The GOP victory likely to be experienced on November 2nd will not only represent the ultimate success of the Tea Party movement, it will also mark the beginning of the end for the well organized anger fest destined to propel a new crop of small government populists into office.
The end will come not with a bang but with the stark realization that the desires that gave rise to this new class of right leaning politicians and allowed them to ride a wave of lower deficits, budget cuts and small government into cushy federal jobs, were not what the people really want after all.
Not even the Tea Partiers.
Full Coverage: Decision 2010
Here are a few things that the freshman class of 2011-12 Congress already knows:
Two-thirds of the federal budget is spent on entitlements.
Of the total spent on entitlements – including the 23 percent that are mandatory expenditures – the largest is Social Security. The next largest mandatory expenditure is for Medicare (12 percent) and Medicaid (7 percent), totaling 19 percent of total federal expenditures. This means that about 42 percent of the federal budget is going to Social Security and subsidized health care.
Other means-tested entitlements and mandatory payments, plus net interest on the federal debt used to pay for these entitlements, add up to about 23 percent. Add the 42 percent for Social Security and subsidized health care and the 23 percent for other entitlements and net interest and you get to 65 percent- or roughly two-thirds of our total federal expenditure.
As I’m sure any self-respecting conservative would agree, it would be difficult – if not completely impossible – to make good on their promise to reduce the size of the federal government, in any meaningful way, without greatly reducing our expenditures on the social entitlement programs.
But then, isn’t that the point? Haven’t the Republicans been telling us that we simply can no longer afford these expensive entitlement plans and that we must either reform these programs or go broke?
They have.
But what they don’t tell us is how they plan to do it. And there’s a good reason for that -they already know that their supporters don’t really want it.
Few would disagree that any changes in the Social Security program would require that any substantive reforms would need to be implemented further down the road. It simply wouldn’t be fair to tell people who have long contributed to the program through their FICA taxes that the benefits they’ve already paid for are going to be taken away from them.
To make this happen would require our youngest generation in the work force to accept it as they would be the first to feel the pain of reduced benefits.
The problem is, they won’t accept it.
In a recent survey conducted by GfK Roper, ninety percent of those polled between the ages of 18 and 29 deemed social security to be an important program. And while 75% of those surveyed agreed that they may not need the program when they reach retirement, they still wanted to know that the money was there just in case things don’t work out as well as they hope.
Republicans are well aware of the dangers of getting this younger generation upset and sufficiently motivated to make it to the polls on election day. (see presidential election of 2008.)
What’s more, if the kids feel this way, is there any doubt as to how the generations that will reach retirement well before they do are likely to feel about this?
And what about the very Tea Party constituency driving the right wing renaissance on the promise of cutting budgets, deficits and government?
Republican strategist David Frum provides the answer.
As Republicans and conservatives have scrambled to rally the support of the Tea Party movement, many have failed to take notice of some of the important inconsistencies implicit in the Tea Party message. A recent New York Times/CBS poll reveals some interesting information about the movement and its fundamental “principles.”
According to this poll, 91% of Tea Partiers want a smaller government with fewer services. Despite this hostility to big government, 62% of Tea Partiers believe that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are worth the cost (apparently no one bothered to tell them that Social Security and Medicare are evil Godless socialist programs).
Via Frum Forum
These inconsistencies will likely prove to be of no consequence in this year’s emotionally driven midterms. However, this does not change the fact that should the politicians sent to Washington by the angry masses actually make good on their promises to shrink government, they would only succeed in making the masses even angrier than they already are. This can’t be good for re-election prospects.
Promising small government is one thing – actually taking away or materially reducing Social Security benefits is quite a different matter. Preaching the repeal of health care reform works nicely with an emotional voter – substantially cutting their Medicare benefits would be a pretty cold slap in the face to that very same voter.
And yet, nobody can make a serious dent in the federal budget without taking a big whack out of both entitlement programs. It simply cannot be done.
Small wonder GOP candidates are loathe to actually give voice to what they would have to do to deliver on their pledge to substantially reduce the size of government.
And the end of the day, the Republicans will have sold something to the buyers that the buyers really don’t want but don’t yet know it. As a result, they will be left to either ignore their promises or be forced to follow through on them. Ignoring promises is bad. In this instance, at least from a political perspective, delivering on them would be even worse.
Either way, it’s checkmate
So Anthem supplies their insurance which would make it CLEAR on why it is impossible to get insurance reform in this country. They get an enormous amount of money from the government every month. They are sleeping with each other basically.
But Ron IS a conservative Republican, mind you.
I’ll call it a non-issue.
The federal government subsidizes every employee’s insurance roughly 72%, not just members of congress. The government plays the insurance game like any private sector company does, just subsidizing what is considered a ‘generous’ amount in the private sector… they are just able to offer a wider buffet of health insurance options and subsidize at a high percentage (which considering the number of federal employees in the DC area and the cost of living around there… 72% might not even be enough when every dollar counts).
I guess what’s at the heart of the argument is, through the Office of Personnel Management, an Anthem BC&BS policy for a single person costs $453.48/month ($340.11/mo subsidized, $113.37 paid by employee). There are some people out there who would love to only have to pay $453.48/month.
Heck, the family cost for that same plan is $1,061.97. I know some people who pay close to that after their employer subsidizes.
You can see right here the benefit a large pool has on the market.
I know, I myself, am looking at $650/month in insurance if I have to get a private single policy because of a bogus pre-existing condition that has never been a problem, Dr’s say there’s a 95% chance it will never be a problem, and it was not preventable.
But the bureaucrats at the insurance companies have pulled out their own death panels and decided that 5% is 5% too high and I’ve gotta pay at-risk premium prices.
I’ll play the market games, just allow private citizens to buy into these massive insurance pools, even if it’s at cost–although any subsidies from employers would lower the cost of health care for their employers even more.
But back to the point–I am fine with my representative (Morgan Griffith) accepting insurance from his employer in Washington, DC if he so chooses. It’s not that big of an issue…
Source for the $$$ I used:
http://www.opm.gov/insure/health/
Suzie Q,
Think you would be hard pressed to find a place on this blog where I have stated that I am either republican or democrat. I have said that I am a moderate. I realize that’s likely confusing to you because I’ve noticed that facts do seem to put you in a bright yellow haze.
#15 But Suzie IS a human being, mind you.
When an elected official is voted out can they do COBRA?
@ Kristen:
“Members of Congress receive retirement and health benefits under the same plans available to other federal employees. They become vested after five years of full participation.”
You can find more information under the Benefits section here:
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/uscongress/a/congresspay.htm
They select their coverage through the site below, just like any other federal employee:
http://www.opm.gov/INSURE/HEALTH/INDEX.ASP
Yes, they could COBRA if they had not served enough time to be covered as part of the federal retirment program.
Thanks Mike.
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