Sensing an Issue If Jack Franks Challenges Joe Walsh for Congress – Part 1

Congressional Democrats put Republicans on record concerning whether they are wiling to make public their participation in Federally-subsidize employee heath coverage.

The Chicago Sun-Times focused in on Congressional health insurance on page of its Sunday edition.

It wasn’t a locally written article, however, by one by Bill Straub of the Scripps Howard News Service.

It seems congressional Democrats, I an attempt to embarrass congressional Republicans “offered a measure that would have required members of Congress to disclose whether they benefited from government-sponsored health care.”

The vote was defeated 240-191 by the GOP, the article says.

Next comes this paragraph:

“But two Illinois freshman—Rep. Joe Walsh, a Tea Party-backed Republican from McHenry and Republican Bobby Schilling, a Tea Party favorite from Downstate Colona—vow not to use the insurance available to Congress.”

The rest of the article explains congressional health care benefits. Congressman Don Manzullo covered a good part of it at the Mark Kirk-Don-Manzullo-Joe Walsh Town Hall Meeting at McHenry County College the weekend before last. Manzullo explained the out-of-pocket expenses when his wife had cancer.

Scripps Howard adds that all Federal employees have the choice of almost 300 private plans, including “high-deductible, tax advantaged plans.”

Employees pay about 30% of the cost, the taxpayers about 70%.

In addition, if taken sick in DC, they can get “priority care at military hospitals” as well as free outpatient care at Washington military hospitals like Walter Reed (where my brother-in-law, Navy Chaplain Mike Peters, fought a losing battle with cancer).

The Capitol also has an Office of the Attending Physician where congressmen and Supreme Court members can get care for $503 per year. (I remember when Congressman Arch A. Moore spoke at a n early 1960’s Oberlin College Young Republican Lincoln Day Dinner, he told us the Capitol Physician had pumped him full of medicine so he could make the visit, even though he was sick.)

Tomorrow, we’ll get back to the title of this article.


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