Voters to GOP: Decline Govt Health Plan
The Hill reports:
Congressional Republicans who assailed the Democrats’ healthcare law in the run-up to the midterm elections are facing pressure to decline government-provided coverage when they take office.
GOP Reps.-elect Bobby Schilling (Ill.) and Mike Kelly (Pa.), both opponents of the law, have already vowed to refuse government-backed health insurance when they come to Capitol Hill next year.
"I have term-limited myself," Schilling told ABC News last week. "I am not taking the pension. I am not taking pay raises, and my family and I are bringing our own healthcare to Washington, D.C."
Other freshman lawmakers who ran on a promise to “repeal and replace” the healthcare law could be pressed to follow suit.
A survey released Tuesday found that the majority of voters want congressional opponents of the new healthcare law to decline government-provided healthcare coverage when they take office.
Fifty-three percent of voters in a survey from Public Policy Polling said lawmakers who ran against the reforms should stay true to their rhetoric and refuse government coverage. Among Republican voters in the survey, that figure jumped to 58 percent.
The survey is just the latest indication that lawmakers who ran in opposition to the healthcare law might find themselves in a pickle as the reforms kick in and lawmakers are forced to buy their health insurance from state-based exchanges.
Currently, members of Congress and their staffs get healthcare coverage through the Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan, which grants stipends to cover the cost of their insurance plans.
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