Congressional Democrats Play Offense on Health Care

The natural reaction to congressional rethuglican opposition to "government health care" should of course be: "Fine. You can't have any."

Finally, some congressional dems have turned that into a concrete proposal.

From TPM:

House Democrats are exploiting an embarrassing moment for the GOP earlier this week to highlight the hypocrisy of Republicans' relentless opposition to health care reform.

Four members -- Joe Crowley (NY), Linda Sanchez (CA), Donna Edwards (MD), and Tim Ryan (OH) -- are rounding up signatures for a letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Speaker-to-be John Boehner, encouraging them to press their members to refuse their federal health benefits based on the same principles underlying their opposition to health care reform.

"It is amazing that your members would complain about not having health care coverage for a few weeks, even after campaigning to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which will help provide coverage to millions of Americans who find themselves without health insurance for months or even years," the letter reads. "It begs the question: how many members of the Republican conference will be forgoing the employer-subsidized FEHBP coverage and experiencing what so many Americans find themselves forced to face? If your conference wants to deny millions of Americans affordable health care, your members should walk that walk."

Unlike denying stimulus funds to congressional districts whose members voted against the stimulus - which would be deeply satisfying but would hurt non-rethuglican residents - denying eeeeevul government health care to members who got elected by opposing it hurts only them, and only financially because you know they'd use campaign funds to buy private policies. And their Big Insurance campaign contributors will love that!

Win-win-win.