If fellow Republicans like Sean Duffy and Paul Ryan are any indication, we won’t have any idea who is paying for Ron Johnson’s health care.
Duffy and Ryan both voted — like the rest of Congressional Republicans — to kill a rule that would have required all members to disclose whether they are taking advantage of their federal health insurance plan.
So is Ron Johnson taking advantage of government health care? Let’s hope that the Journal Sentinel’s Craig Gilbert or Don Walker asks him if Johnson ever gives the newspaper an interview.
Let’s not forget that Ron Johnson’s been less than honest when discussing his own health care in the past. Periodically throughout the campaign he said he had the same insurance as his own employees. But then it turned out that his companies were using prison labor. According to the Associated Press, which broke the story:
Republican Senate candidate Ron Johnson, who has campaigned against government subsidies to business, employs up to nine prison inmates at his plastics factories whose health care costs are paid by the state, according to records obtained by The Associated Press.
Clearly not everyone at Ron Johnson’s companies has the exact same health insurance Ron Johnson does. But then it turned out that some of Ron Johnson’s employees are on BadgerCare, the state-subsidized health care program for low-income workers. According to one report, around 4 percent of Johnson’s employees were using BadgerCare.
When the news broke that Johnson’s employees were using BadgerCare, he again mislead the public, by saying that some people might be choosing BadgerCare because it was cheaper. Here’s what he told the Journal Sentinel:
“Depending on the particular situation, it it’s less costly for them to take Badger Care, they may choose that option. They have that freedom.”
Republicans like Ron Johnson would not tolerate a state-run insurance program competing with private insurance companies. That’s one reason why BadgerCare Plus is a program of last resort and the rules require people take employer-based health care if it is offered to them.
So let’s see. Thousands of people are now getting health care because of health care reform. Ron Johnson wants to repeal those benefits. Ron Johnson repeatedly lied about how he provided health care to his own employees, relying on the state to pick up health care costs for a big chunk of his workers.
So is Ron Johnson and his staff getting government health care? You tell me.
Welcome to Johnsonville. The Constitution doesn’t require elected officials to respond to the governed.
I called Senator Ron Johnson’s Washington office (202-224-5323) and asked if he and his staff had all declined participation in any version of Government subsidized health-care. This would be in keeping with his campaign rhetoric. The person taking my call could not answer, but a reply was promised. Any predictions on the response?
I called Sean Duffy’s office and asked the same thing. I live in the 7th CD. I was promised a reply ten days ago and haven’t heard anything back.
I’d like to hear what the conservatives on this blog think of their new elected officials allowing a government takeover of their personal and family’s health care. Aren’t they afraid of death panels, or secret communists hiding somewhere in the sign-up office?
For me its not so much that they are taking the government health care(which we know they are), its about them voting to not disclose if they are or not. Especially after their campaigns….
I think what he meant during the campaign when he said Feingold was out of touch with WI was that he was too accessable and transparent. The days of knowing what your elected officials are doing are over.
They don’t get government healthcare. They get private insurance paid for by their employer, the tax payer. BIG DIFFERENCE.
This simple fact that others cannot seem to distingish is astouding.
Squidknuckle,
The Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan is an exchange in which private insurers compete for business with federal employees.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act does something similar for all Americans.
Any elected official who avails him or herself, and their family, of the benefits of the FEHBP and then votes to repeal the PPACA is a flat out hypocrite and should be voted out of office in the next election.
“private insurers”
Enough said. It’s not government healthcare as you, Zach, an PP have stated.
“The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act does something similar for all Americans.” If that’s the only thing Obamacare did, Republicans probably wouldn’t repeal it. In fact, Paul Ryan suggested a similar mechanic in his Patient’s Choice Act with Burr, Coburn and Nunes.
Instead, we have this:
http://jec.senate.gov/republicans/public//index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&File_id=8e6dbf03-ca4a-44be-9de4-a100c43fb5c8
I’m pretty sure there is more in there than just “private insurers competing for business.”
You guys/gals are such obvious hypocrites. How can anyone take what you write seriously?
You seriously can’t see a difference between government giving everyone in the citizenry a benefit vs. the government acting as an employer for its own employees?
I forgot who I was talking to… you ask how you can take what others write seriously? This from the guy whose witty responses include “rubber and glue,” “wubba wubba wubba,” and “Polly wolly doodle all the day.” No one is taking you seriously.
Forgotyourscreenname,
The Affordable Care Act is not the government giving the citizenry something. It requires health insurance companies to compete within state exchanges. If a company wants to compete within the exchange, they can’t deny people because of pre-existing conditions, or drop people when they get sick, etc.
The Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan does almost the same thing. If insurance conmpanies want to compete for business with federal employees they have to meet the requirements.
It is profoundly hypocritical for any member of Congress to take advantage of the FEHBP, and then deny the average American and his or her family the same opportunity through the Affordable Care Act.
There are no death panels, secret Communists, or Marxist Nazi Muslim provisions in the bill. It does not give free health care to illegal aliens, no matter how many times Joe Wilson hollers “you lie”. Nor is there anything “job killing” about the Affordable Care Act. You will be unable to find a single republican legislator who can honestly tell you how the ACA is killing jobs, becuase it Just. Plain. Isn’t. So.
Wubba, Wubba, Wubba.