Devildawg15's blog: "Lawmakers Submit to Obamacare- Accidentally"

If it's good enough for the American people, it should be good enough
for Washington lawmakers, right? Maybe.

In their haste to pass Obama's healthcare overhaul, liberals in
Congress overlooked one detail-they have inadvertently made
themselves ineligible for the top-notch health care plans previously
available to them through the Federal Employees Health Benefits
Program, and instead have accidentally subjected themselves to the
disastrous effects of Obamacare.

The Congressional Research Service released a report detailing the
provisions in Obama's healthcare reform bill that would require
members of Congress and their staffs to surrender their FEHBP coverage
in exchange for nationalized insurance. This would leave Congress in
an interesting quandary: since the federal exchange will not take
effect until 2014, the members and their staff would be left without
insurance until then.

Jerry Markon of the Washington Post writes: "The confusion was one of
several potential problems that congressional Republicans and
health-care experts have raised over how the landmark legislation
affects members of Congress and their staffs."

Devonia Smith points out in the Washington Examiner that "the law puts
Congress in the same boatthey built for the rest of America,
without a clue what the new health care reform will mean to them."

But Congress needn't have worried: the Office of Personnel Management
released a statement this week citing a "drafting error" in the bill,
which did not specify the date at which lawmakers will be required to
relinquish their current insurance plans. Because of this oversight,
members of Congress will be able to keep their current FEHBP plans
until 2014-news that was received with sighs of
relief.

And even when the federal exchanges do come into existence, a whole
slew of exemptions built into the language of the bill excuses many
federal employees and even White House staff from having to
participate.

This is just one example of the dangers of rushing to pass poorly
designed, unpopular legislation. The fact that Congress can't even
manage its own health care plan does not bode well for American
citizens. Though they may have found a way to finagle their way out of
this predicament, they are still leaving the American citizens with a
sloppy, substandard health care program.