Leaks Expose Bipartisan Plot to Save Congress From ObamaCare
Written by
Alex Newman
As Republican leaders in Congress were publicly fuming about
congressional exemptions from ObamaCare, leaked documents show that GOP
House Speaker John Boehner’s (shown front, center) office spent months
working with top Democrats such as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
(shown front, right) to ensure that lawmakers and their staff would be
spared from the
deeply unpopular healthcare “reforms.” Critics say the e-mails,
first given to Politico as an
act of political retaliation,
have once again exposed the political theater in Washington, D.C., for
what it is — mostly a show put on for the public by two wings of the
same establishment. Still, the real story is not Boehner, Reid, or even
their hypocrisy, it is the bigger picture: A Congress that is deceptive,
manipulative, and completely out of control.
The original
so-called Affordable Care Act, known as ObamaCare, required that
lawmakers and their staffs join the controversial healthcare exchanges
created by the scheme, which was rammed through Congress in defiance of
the public and the enumerated powers listed in the Constitution. If that
part of the statute had remained in place, huge contributions from
taxpayers to provide health insurance for members of Congress and their
staffers — estimated at up to $12,000 per year per family — would have
ended. While Democrat lawmakers who passed ObamaCare insisted it was
good enough for the American people, the plan was apparently not worthy
of the exalted political class in Washington.
The e-mails from
Boehner’s office show that the speaker, who under heavy pressure has
finally moved beyond rhetoric by making efforts to protect the American
people from ObamaCare using
the power of the purse,
spent months working with Democrat leadership to exempt lawmakers from
the healthcare schemes. Indeed, this summer, the e-mails show, Boehner
and Reid were plotting to organize a secret meeting with Obama to deal
with the issue. Because it would almost certainly spark another wave of
public outrage, Boehner’s chief of staff even agreed to use a deceptive
cover story to conceal the true purpose of the meeting: plotting to save
Congress from ObamaCare.
“We can’t let it get out there
that this is for [Boehner] and [Reid] to ask the President to carve us
out of the requirement of Obamacare,” Boehner’s chief of staff Mike
Sommers told Reid’s top aide, David Krone, in a July 17 e-mail obtained
by Politico and other media outlets. “This is a little bit more
difficult because it isn’t a routine meeting, as [Nancy] Pelosi and
[Mitch] McConnell won’t be there. I am even ok if it is the President
hauling us down to talk about the next steps on immigration.” When
Reid’s staff expressed support for having the White House deceive the
American people by pretending the meeting was about “immigration,”
Sommers responded: “I really don’t care what is is [sic] about[,] it
just can’t be about what we know it is about!” The White House was
apparently happy to participate in the fraud against Americans, too, an
e-mail from Krone shows.
While the meeting with Obama reportedly
never happened, legislative gimmicks to save Congress from ObamaCare
were drafted and circulated — though not introduced. Other ploys were
also cooked up, such as grandfathering members of Congress into their
current generous taxpayer-funded health plans. “When I was in the state
legislature, we used to stick things in [bills] and no one would
notice,” Boehner is alleged to have said by unnamed sources during a
private meeting with Reid. However, according to Politico, the idea of
trying to sneak a measure into a bill died after it became clear that a
public scandal would almost certainly erupt.
Eventually, the
Obama administration reportedly got involved in the issue under heavy
pressure from Democrats in Congress, who apparently
found out what was in ObamaCare
and did not want to become victims of the scheme they foisted on the
American people. So, finally, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM)
lawlessly decreed via administrative “regulation” that subsidies for
supposed public servants on Capitol Hill would continue. Everything
would have worked out fine for lawmakers and their staffs — at least
until recent developments sparked the politically motivated leaks and
the ensuing uproar.
The latest revelations about the secret, bipartisan scheming to exempt Congress came after House Republicans
passed a budget that
would eliminate the controversial exemption. “Why don’t we make sure
that every American is treated just like we are?” Boehner asked from the
House floor on Monday, as lawmakers were working on stopping a partial
government shutdown after Republicans retreated from
an earlier position.
"Get rid of the exemption for Members of Congress.... It’s a matter of
fairness for all Americans." The original GOP plan, which only came
about thanks to concerted efforts by conservatives, would have entirely
defunded ObamaCare. When the Senate refused and Obama threatened to veto
the budget and shut down some parts of the federal government, House
GOP leaders instead tried to delay ObamaCare by a year and force
Congress to participate in the scheme.
The e-mail leaks appear to
be a half-baked attempt at making Speaker Boehner look like a hypocrite
amid the ongoing battle to stop ObamaCare. House Republicans have so
far resisted the bullying and outrageous threats by Senate Democrats and
the Obama administration to immediately hand over the taxpayer funds
needed to keep implementing the complete federal healthcare takeover.
So, according to sources cited in
news reports, Reid and his minions decided to break “unwritten rules” by leaking the embarrassing e-mail exchanges.
“We always made it clear that the House would not pass any legislative ‘fix,’” Boehner spokesman Michael Steel was
quoted as responding,
adding that the House speaker’s solution is and always has been to
completely repeal ObamaCare. “Any emails from Mr. Sommers will reflect
the Speaker’s position: he voted against ObamaCare, and he wants to
repeal ObamaCare…. If the Senate Democrats and the White House want to
make a ‘fix’ to the law, it would be their fix. The Speaker’s ‘fix’ is
repeal. This is just a desperate act by Harry Reid’s staff to protect
their own subsidy.”
In fairness, until the GOP took over the
House, the blame for the myriad fiascos surrounding ObamaCare did rest
mostly with Democrats — they rammed the legislation through Congress
without having read it despite the wave of public outrage, and Obama
signed it. Now, however, aside from the Supreme Court, responsibility
for ObamaCare and all of its consequences will be on the GOP’s
shoulders, too — at least if Republican lawmakers in the House refuse to
exercise their constitutional authorities and obligations to defund the
scheme in its entirety.
Politico, meanwhile, seems to have served as a willing mouthpiece in the apparent attack on Republicans. Citing sources,
Roll Call suggested
Reid’s office leaked the e-mails to retaliate against Boehner. However,
the real story has been largely overlooked in the frantic effort to
demonize the GOP for doing what its constituents
demanded loud and clear.
What the leaked documents show is that the same politicians fighting
tooth and nail to force ObamaCare on the American people — Obama, Reid,
House Democrats, and establishment senators on both sides of the aisle —
were quietly scheming to make sure that the disastrous healthcare
“reform” they foisted on America did not apply to them.
Of course, as
The New American’s Tom Eddlem
explained
recently, the GOP-controlled House of Representatives has the power to
kill any and all government programs that Republicans so often rage
against on the campaign trail. Because the Constitution gives the House
primary control over taxing and spending, Republican lawmakers could
simply defund ObamaCare, Planned Parenthood, the lawless EPA, the
out-of-control Department of Education, the ATF, and all of the other
unconstitutional schemes and agencies. With both parties scrambling to
somehow get the full government open again before people realize most of
it is worse than useless, however, the chances of meaningful reforms
getting through the bipartisan Washington establishment still appear
pretty slim.
Photo of John Boehner and Harry Reid: AP Images
Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, politics, and more. He can be reached at
anewman@thenewamerican.com.
4. As more survivors leave, therapists and churches and support
people are becoming more aware of the sophisticated mind control
techniques used to control members. They are learning to undo it.
