Side Effects: Congress Regulates Themselves Out of Coverage

Robert Moffit / April 21, 2010

In the mad dash to meet their strictly political deadline for passing Obamacare,  lawmakers wound up victimizing many people.  Including themselves.

Members of Congress and Congressional staff currently enjoy a wide variety of excellent health insurance options, courtesy of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP). One of the more commonplace campaign promises of federal lawmakers is that they will fight to give ordinary Americans the same kind of choice and competition among the wide variety of private health plans that they have.

Obamacare doesn’t begin to deliver on that promise.  But in their rush to slap together a bill for the president, Congress just may have succeeded—unintentionally—in abolishing their own enrollment in the FEHBP. (more…)