ObamaCare Subsidy for Congress
You get an ObamaCare subsidy if you make less than 40% of the poverty level. The poverty level bar is lower for persons of Congress. They make $174,000 and get and still get a subsidy.
When the Affordable Care act was being passed late in the night, Republican Senator Charles Grassley got members of Congress to agree to go to the exchanges, just like everyone else, to buy health care.
Except the political class isn’t like everyone else. They get gold-plated coverage mostly paid for by the government. Grassley’s plan meant they would now be liable for thousands of dollars in out of pocket expenses.
Congress Gets Its Subsidy
Well, the political class takes care of its own and President Obama got the Office of Personal Management to restore the subsidy. You’d think Republicans would raise a stink about this and try to blame Obama for shutting down the government in order to save subsidies for politicians.
But we didn’t hear that so much. The reason, according to Forbes, is that it was Speaker Boehner, working behind the scenes, who pushed Obama to push to restore the subsidies.
Update: Michael Tanner of Cato Institute points out that 780 companies and 451 unions have received exemptions from ObamaCare.
House Republicans offered an amendment to strip out the ObamaCare subsidy for Congress but the Senate refused to bring it to a vote.
Unions and Obamacare
Unions have found that ObamaCare will cost them money and possibly membership.
Charles Lane, in the Washington Post, points out that unions negotiate “Cadillac” health coverage as a primary service to their members. Under the Affordable Care Act those plans get hit with a 40% excise tax.
So, while Big Business gets waived from the “employer mandate”, Big Labor gets nothing.
Unions Left Out
Don’t know why the Republicans haven’t jumped on this, but they should at least be pleased to learn that Obama’s not a socialist.
Government Collapse
The majority of Americans don’t like ObamaCare but they don’t want it to collapse. They don’t want to risk a government shutdown either. Republicans hate it but are divided over risking a shutdown.
Charles Krauthammer, and Brit Hume are among conservatives who thinks it’s unlikely President Obama will sign a bill abolishing ObamaCare. They have a point.
Here’s a column by Daniel Henninger betting that Obamacare will be the straw that breaks the donkey’s back, causing the progressive agenda to collapse. Hmm.
Donkey Business
Here’s a donkey with straw. 
And here’s a donkey up in the air. The straw donkey was probably a better analogy but I thought this one was pretty funny.
Won’t Negotiate
The president won’t negotiate. He issues executive orders. He grants waivers of the employer mandate to big business. He gives a special subsidy to the political class for health care. But he won’t negotiate.
Harry Reid, Obama, and others like to say that ObamaCare is the law of the land and can’t be changed. Isn’t the debt ceiling also the law of the land.? They want that changed.
Negotiate This
I thought negotiation was what politicians do. How is it that when the government shuts down, it’s not the fault of the guy who won’t negotiate.
Wounded Warrior Cartoons
I spent last week drawing cartoons for wounded warriors.
First stop was the VA hospital in Cincinnati on Sunday. The trip was organized by Polly Keener, the president of the Great Lakes chapter of the National Cartoonists Society.
The only picture I have is this one of New Yorker cartoonist Michael Shaw. Michael made a witty presentation explaining that he draws 10 cartoons a week and considers it a good year if New Yorker publishes 12! That’s cutthroat cartooning.
Our visit, however, was decidedly non-cutthroat cartooning. We drew for vets with all kinds of injuries and health problems, as well as a few perfectly fine staff members. The most interesting vet was an 85 year old guy who lied to join the navy at age 16. He served in the pacific during WWII. Then he joined the army and served at Inchon in the Korean war.
Wounded Warrior Tour
L-R Top: Steve Moor In the Bleachers, Eddie Pittman Phineas and Ferb, Sam Viviano Mad Magazine, Bill Hinds Tank McNamara, Buzz Beamer, Cleats, Paul Fell editorial cartoonist. Bottom: Rob Smith, Jr. editorial cartoonist, Jeff Bacon BroadSide/GreenSide, Your faithful correspondent
On Monday I headed out on a USO sponsored tour of forward operating bases – in Florida and Georgia. I’ve made other USO trips in the past to Germany and the Persian Gulf. My cartoon buddies from the Sunshine State theater are pictured above.
Jeff Bacon, a retired navy captain turned cartoonist, works with USO to put the trips together. We visited MacDill Air Force Base, The Naval Submarine Base at Kings Bay, Georgia, and the Naval Air Station at Jacksonville.
We didn’t get to fly any drones and the closest we got to a sub was lunch. But we did draw for vets with everything from head and spinal trauma, to paranoid schizophrenia. We also drew for PlayStation jockeys at the base shopping mall.
It was a rewarding trip but I fell way behind on my regular workload. Something about health care and debt ceilings. Got caught up over the week-end. Now you can see everything you need to know about last week’s news in the posts above.
