Voters Want Anti-ObamaCare Congressman To Reject Congressional Health Insurance?

Doug Mataconis · · 13 comments

Sometimes, a poll comes back with an inherently silly result, and this strikes me as being one of those times:

Most voters say members of Congress who campaigned against the health care reform bill should turn down the medical insurance offered them as federal employees, according to a new poll released Tuesday. In the Public Policy Polling survey, 53 percent of the voters said members who won election in part because of their opposition to health care reform should decline the insurance that comes with their new jobs in Congress. One-third of those surveyed said members should accept the insurance. (…) Liberal voters were slightly more open to seeing anti-health care members accept the health insurance, with 39 percent supporting it. Forty-eight percent said those new members should turn down the insurance. Among voters who self-identified as conservative, 28 percent said members should enroll in the government insurance, while 55 percent they said should not.

I honestly don’t understand what people are thinking here. The health insurance that the Federal Government provides to Members of Congress, Federal employees, and civilian and uniformed members of the military is functionally no different from the health insurance benefit that any other employer provides to their employees. One can argue that the benefits that Federal employees get are better than what most private sector employees get (not to mention the fact that they’re provided at taxpayer expense). To argue that there is something hypocritical about opposing the Affordable Care Act and taking the insurance offered you as a Federal employee, as this poll seems to suggest, is perhaps the silliest, stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.

So, yes, if you’re a Member of Congress go ahead and take the insurance. Then, get to work fixing the mess called “health care reform” that the 111th Congress left on your doorstep.