GOP legislator frets over 28 days without insurance -- but what about 30 million he'd leave uninsured?

By Ezra Klein

It's worth dwelling for a moment on the reaction of Rep. Andy Harris, an incoming legislator who staunchly opposes the new health-care law and ran promising its repeal, to news that he'd had to wait a month for his government-funded health-care benefits to kick in:

Republican Andy Harris, an anesthesiologist who defeated freshman Democrat Frank Kratovil on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, reacted incredulously when informed that federal law mandated that his government-subsidized health-care policy would take effect Feb. 1 – 28 days after his Jan. 3rd swearing-in. “He stood up and asked the two ladies who were answering questions why it had to take so long, what he would do without 28 days of health care,” said a congressional staffer who saw the exchange. ... “Harris then asked if he could purchase insurance from the government to cover the gap,” added the aide.

The point isn't that it's hypocritical to oppose health-care subsidies for poorer people or an individual mandate while simultaneously wanting every benefit your federal job gives you. Those positions can coexist. It's Harris's fear at being uninsured. But whatever else you think of the health-care law, it really does keep people from being uninsured. Yesterday, Aaron Carroll pulled together a graph looking at the number of uninsured under the status quo, the GOP's alternative health-care plan, and the Affordable Care Act. Harris presumably supports one of the first two options. But that means he's leaving a lot of people to wonder what to do without health care -- and for a lot longer than 28 days: