Congress engaged in outright fraud to escape a requirement that everyone on Capitol Hill buy individual health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, and the White House played along, says a government watchdog who calls the congressional Obamacare dodge an under-reported scandal.
The Obama administration let Congress, which employs thousands of people, classify itself as a small business so that lawmakers and hill employees could keep heavily subsidized, federally funded coverage that would not have been available to them as individuals, Phil Kerpen, president of American Commitment, told "MidPoint" host Ed Berliner on
Newsmax TV on Monday.
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"This is quite literal fraud," said Kerpen. "These are documents, formal documents, that were filed with the D.C. health exchange — the Obamacare exchange in the District of Columba — certifying that the House of Representatives only has 45 employees and the United States Senate also only has 45 employees.
"These are signed under penalty of perjury, and since they were signed, 13,700 people have signed up for [coverage in] the supposed 'small businesses' with 90 total employees," he said. "So, this is pretty blatant fraud here on the part of Congress."
Congress so far has shown little appetite to investigate itself. A measure sponsored by Sen. David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican, to look into the apparent ruse and identify who signed off on the paperwork failed overwhelmingly, by a vote of 14-5, in the Small Business Committee.
One GOP presidential candidate, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, joined the majority in declining to investigate. Another, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, sided with Vitter.
"So, we've got a serious fraud here and we've got a bipartisan cover-up," said Kerpen, who first publicized the allegations
on his website.
"Nothing makes the American people more angry than Congress cutting corrupt backroom deals to give themselves and their staff special benefits – especially a deal that relies on the blatantly false claim that the House and Senate are small businesses," he wrote.
Kerpen said on Monday that Congress had been able to keep the story mostly under wraps, at least until Vitter forced a vote in committee.
"We now have this . . . vote where five Republicans and all the Democrats on the Small Business Committee voted to kill Sen. Vitter's investigation," said Kerpen. "He's going to demand a floor vote in the Senate at some time soon, and I hope he gets one because I'd like to see where every senator stands."
Kerpen said congressional leaders, if they wanted to, "could end this tomorrow if they walked out and said, 'We're going to follow the law as written. It's terrible. I'm sorry that people are going to have an effective pay cut around here. But they're going to have to buy their health insurance on the Obamacare exchange like anyone else who lost employer coverage.'"
"That was the whole point of this provision in the law," said Kerpen. "The pressure is just going to build on them until they're going to end up doing the right thing. The longer they fight it, quite frankly, the worse it's going to be for them and the more they're going to look bad for holding out."
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