Obama's Health Care Country Club: Private and Exclusive

The Democrats have assured us that the Obama/Pelosi/Reid healthcare plan is the best thing since sliced bread. Everyone will have better health care at a cheaper price than ever before. Thirteen million new folks will be added, no one will be denied care for pre-existing conditions, children will be dependents on their parents' plans until they're 26, and it will be cheaper.

Have you stopped laughing yet?

One thing is very interesting about this wonderful plan that is good enough for the hoi polloi. Congress and the president exempted themselves from it. That's right. This wonderful health plan, this gift from God, this Christmas present in March that will solve everyone's health problems doesn't apply to the president and members of Congress. That's not all. It also doesn't apply to senior staff members, presumably including those who drafted the bill. Hmmm...they know what's in it and want no part of it.

A Washington Times editorial yesterday provided some interesting information:

Last year, Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican, spearheaded efforts to have all Americans included in the plan, but he ran into heavy opposition from unions representing federal workers - the same unions that were pro-Obamacare stalwarts. In September, the Senate approved a scaled-down amendment that covered members of Congress and their staff. When this provision later emerged from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's office, the leadership and committee staff loophole had appeared. A move in December by Mr. Grassley and Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, to close this loophole and to extend the law to senior members of the executive branch - including the president, vice president and Cabinet members - was blocked by Senate Democratic leaders.

Now what exactly do they know about the plan that we don't. If it's so good why are they exempted? The Times put it well when they wrote:

At yesterday's signing ceremony, Mr. Obama said Americans will be "part of a big pool, just like federal employees are part of a big pool. They'll have the same choice of private health insurance that members of Congress get for themselves." But the American people will have a public pool; the executive branch and congressional staffers kept their country-club pool private....The special exemptions slipped into the health care law are another example of how those statists who rule consider themselves a privileged class, imposing burdens on the country that they will not accept themselves....Meanwhile, we await Mr. Obama's explanation why if his "historic" health care law is so great for America, it's not good enough for him and his family.

Your answer, Mr. President? 

(Read the complete Washington Times editorial. )