{"id":180121,"date":"2017-07-14T17:07:00","date_gmt":"2017-07-14T22:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2017\/07\/14\/but-of-course-4\/"},"modified":"2017-07-14T17:07:00","modified_gmt":"2017-07-14T22:07:00","slug":"but-of-course-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2017\/07\/14\/but-of-course-4\/","title":{"rendered":"But of Course\u2026\u2026\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You know that clusterf%$# of a healthcare bill that Mitch McConnell is trying to push through the Senate?<\/p>\n<p>It turns out that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/policy-and-politics\/2017\/7\/13\/15966034\/senate-republicans-exemption\">it exempts the US Senate from their &#8220;reforms&#8221;<\/a>.  Funny that, huh?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">Senate Republicans included a provision that exempts members of Congress and their staff from part of their latest health care plan.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">This exemption could have the effect of ensuring that members of Congress have coverage for a wider array of benefits than other Americans who purchase their own coverage.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">A Senate Republican aide confirmed that the exemption existed but was unable to comment as to the specific effect it would have. The aide said it was included to ensure that the bill hewed to the chamber\u2019s strict reconciliation rules that limit the policies this health bill can include.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">The exemption is similar to the one that existed in the House health bill. After Vox reported on its existence, the House voted to close the loophole \u2014 and the Senate aide expected their chamber to follow the same path.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">The revised Senate health bill draft released Thursday lets health insurers offer plans that do not cover the Affordable Care Act\u2019s essential health benefits, which requires insurers to include a wide array of benefits such as maternity care and mental health services.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">Insurers can offer plans without these benefits \u2014 unless they\u2019re selling coverage to members of Congress and their staff, who are required to buy coverage on the health law marketplaces. The exemption says this part of the law still applies to any plans sold to Congress.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So not a surprise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You know that clusterf%$# of a healthcare bill that Mitch McConnell is trying to push through the Senate? It turns out that it exempts the US Senate from their &#8220;reforms&#8221;. Funny that, huh? Senate Republicans included a provision that exempts members of Congress and their staff from part of their latest health care plan.This exemption &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[447,368,463,449],"class_list":["post-180121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-congress","tag-corruption","tag-healthcare","tag-legislation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180121"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180121\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}