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Call Comes on Heels of New Polling Showing Voters Agree
Washington, DC — Today, the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) called on Republican Members of the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives to abstain from enrolling in the Federal Employees’ Health Benefits Plan (FEHBP).
“These Republicans want to repeal health reform, putting the insurance companies back in charge and putting affordable coverage out of reach of millions of Americans,” said AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee. “If they enroll in the taxpayer-funded health care system provided to members of Congress, they deserve to be denounced as hypocrites.”
Republicans spent an astounding amount of time during the 2010 campaign rallying against the Affordable Care Act — a law that will end the worst insurance company abuses such as eliminating pre-existing condition exclusions and annual and lifetime coverage limits. “If you campaigned for repeal, you should go without taxpayer-funded coverage first,” said McEntee.
A new poll by Public Policy Polling shows that a 53% majority of Americans believe that members of Congress who campaigned against the health care law should decline coverage provided by taxpayers. The sentiment is most strong among independent (56% to 27%) and Republican (58% to 28%) voters. The poll results are available here.
Congressman-elect Andy Harris (R-MD) recently drew attention to the Republicans’ hypocrisy on health care by complaining about the 28 days he would have to go without taxpayer-funded insurance — immediately after being elected to Congress on an anti-reform platform. “The answer to the ever-rising cost of insurance is not the expansion of government-run or government-mandated insurance but, instead, common-sense, market-based solutions that ensure decisions are made by patients and their doctors.”
McEntee says Harris is displaying “breathtaking hypocrisy.”
“If these Republicans really support market-based solutions to health care, they ought to go out and try to buy an individual policy in the insurance market,” McEntee said.
AFSCME’s 1.6 million members provide the vital services that make America happen. With members in hundreds of different occupations – from nurses to corrections officers, child care providers to sanitation workers – AFSCME advocates for fairness in the workplace, excellence in public services and prosperity and opportunity for all working families.
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American Federation of State, County
and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO
1625 L Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036-5687
Telephone (202) 429-1145
Fax (202) 429-1120
You guys should stop complaining because, one the health care we have now isnt as good as it was supposed to be. also the law has just been signed so give it some time. so if u want to say u have the right to choose tell that to ur congress men or state official. If you do not have insurance and need one You can find full medical coverage at the lowest price check http://ow.ly/3akSX .If you have health insurance and do not care about cost just be happy about it and trust me you are not going to loose anything!
This example is the GOP’s “One-Stop-Shop” of hypocrisy; the decimation of the middle class.
Cheney/Gregg's Deficit Reduction Act 2005 passed in RECONCILIATION, illegally with two different documents in the House and Senate, taxes the middle class elderly the total amount of their life savings if they need a nursing home. Most of these nursing homes are non-profit to boot, as it is in my parent's case.
In my parent's case this was a $600+ a day “tax” for 1.5 years before MassHealth (yes, Massachusetts) would consider their application. So my parents paid out their total life savings @ $600 a day to subsidize all the others in the nonprofit nursing home who are already on Medicaid.
This is the Cheney/Gregg's method of reduction of the deficit…off the backs of W.W.II Disabled Vets (my parents) who remain alive long enough to need a nursing home, but too old to complain. If they passed away before they needed the nursing home their life savings would have been inherited tax free (less than 2M). No inheritance tax?! They’ll get your assets when you enter a nursing home ($300+ a day each)!!!!!!!!!
Now that their life savings has gone to the nonprofit and Medicaid has kicked in, my parents still have to pay the nonprofit their retirement income of $69,348 a year, as it should be!!!!!! …but only after Medicaid demands they continue to pay their Medicare and Federal Blue Cross insurance premiums of $5,505 a year. They have prescription coverage under their Medigap policy, but they still were forced to Medicare D.
Why wasn’t their retirement income of $69,348 (minus the premiums of $5,505 still required of them going to Medicare and Federal Blue Cross) enough for the nonprofit nursing home from the date of their admissions? Ask Cheney/Gregg.
Gregg says now… “We can all agree that no American should lose their life savings or their home because of illness or injury and that the rising cost of health care severely burdens individuals, families and businesses,” Gregg wrote in his letter to Obama this week. “Report after report also confirms that health care costs are a systemic risk to the long-term fiscal health of our nation.”
He apparently forgot about his Deficit Reduction Act 2005 he passed in reconciliation which does exactly this to the elderly needing nursing homes who have saved more than $2,000 in their lifetime and not hidden it.
Cheney/Gregg's DRA 2005 is the perfect example of how the GOP reduces the deficit off the backs of W.W.II Vets with a tax of $300+/day…the perfect storm of GOP, health care debate let them eat cake and GOP hypocrisy.
Medicare does not cover nursing homes. My parent’s life savings does. Watch Sen. Gregg "not" answer the hard questions about what he did here.
The Cheney/Gregg Deficit Reduction Act 2005, passed in reconciliation, is the largest case of Elder Middle-class W.W.II Disabled Vet Financial Abuse in History!!
Wake up all you elders who are on Medicare or Medicare Advantage and LOVE them. Cheney/Gregg and nonprofit nursing homes CFO’s are counting on you and your families to remain hapless while they take your life savings from you if you ever need long-term care.
The gentleman in the next room to my parents purchased long-term-care insurance to protect his assets. It turns out that this policy will not pay for his long-term care now (he was duped by the countless loopholes). So his and my parents’ life savings are paying for all the others in that nonprofit nursing home who hid their assets and/or are already on Medicaid.
Pay close attention to how the GOP will not address what they did to the elderly with the Deficit Reduction Act 2005 that passed in reconciliation. They counted on the elderly to be and remain ignorant until they are admitted into nonprofit nursing homes…