Somehow The Mainstream Media May Have Missed This

CNS News posted a story today on the latest developments in the government shutdown. There is some information buried in the body of the story that I don’t believe is being widely reported.

The article reports:

House Republicans want to tie the CR to changes on Obamacare, offering proposals to delay the individual mandate by one year and to prevent Congress and congressional staff from getting government subsidies for Obamacare. Senate Democrats refused. The federal government shut down at midnight Tuesday after Congress failed to come to agreement over a CR, which authorizes federal spending after Sept. 30, when the most recent funding legislation expired.

“Last night, Senate Democrats went so far as to reject legislation that would have kept the government running under just two conditions – just two – that families get the same one year relief as employers and that Congress has to follow the same rules on Obamacare exchanges as their constituents. That’s how extreme the Democratic position is. They won’t even accept basic fairness as a principle under Obamacare,” McConnell said.

These two things are important. President Obama already unilaterally delayed the employer mandate in ObamaCare. The Republicans are asking that he give all Americans the same right he gave to their bosses.

On September 16, 2013, National Review reported:

In 1995, the newly elected Republican Congress passed a Congressional Accountability Act to fulfill a promise made the previous year in the Contract with America. For the first time, the Act applied to Congress the same civil-rights employment and labor laws that lawmakers had required everyday citizens to abide by. With some lapses, it’s worked well to defuse public outrage about “one law for thee, one law for me” congressional behavior.

In 2009, Senator Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) decided that the principle deserved to be embedded in Obamacare, and he was able to insert a provision requiring all members of Congress and their staffs to get insurance through the Obamacare health exchanges. “The more that Congress experiences the laws it passes, the better,” said Grassley. Although his amendment was watered down before final passage to exclude committee staff, it still applies to members of Congress and their personal staffs. Most employment lawyers interpreted that to mean that the taxpayer-funded federal health-insurance subsidies dispensed to those on Congress’s payroll — which now range from $5,000 to $11,000 a year — would have to end.

On August 7, 2013, the Daily Caller reported:

Members of Congress and Hill staffers will not lose their health-care subsidies from the government when Obamacare is implemented because of an exception proposed Wednesday by the Office of Personnel Management.

What that says is that Congress and Hill staffers will get subsidies that are not available to average Americans with comparable incomes.
The bill sent to the Senate last night would have corrected that and delayed the individual mandate. The Senate refused to consider the bill.
Don’t blame the Republicans for the shutdown–they are trying to force Congress to be covered by the laws they pass. Unfortunately, most of the media is not interested in reporting that story.
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