Congresswoman Michele Bachmann of Minnesota appeared on CNN and revealed that she lost her family's health insurance because of Obamacare. She complained that her husband Marcus has health concerns that need to be covered and now her family has to waste time shopping for health care plans:
When asked by (Wolf) Blitzer if she’s going to sign up for the exchanges, Bachmann first said, “Are you kidding? I’m not gonna waste an hour on that thing!” before telling him “I lost my health insurance under Obamacare.”
She said her husband has some personal health issues and they need insurance, at which point (Paul) Begala jumped in to say, “And now you can’t be denied! Thanks, Barack Obama!” Bachmann shot back, “We were just fine before.”
She explained to Blitzer that “we are forced to go on the website and purchase the health insurance plan from the D.C. health exchange.” And while she’s going to do it eventually, Bachmann said she doesn’t want to waste her “time and frustration” on a website that doesn’t even work yet.
Of course, the reason Bachmann and other members of Congress have to navigate Obamacare's health care exchanges is
because of a bill amendment introduced by Iowa's Senator Chuck Grassley:
If Bachmann had government employee insurance (her office did not respond to requests for comment), she is losing it because of Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley's amendment to Obamacare. The Grassley amendment requires all members of Congress and their staffs buy into the exchanges, supposedly so that Congress has a personal stake in the efficacy of the health care law. Grassley proposed the amendment in 2010 as a challenge to Democrats, but it ended up passing with bipartisan support. Issues surrounding the amendment were a major focus of the shutdown negotiations — Sens. David Vitter and Ted Cruz tried to pass an amendment that would remove employer contributions to congressional staff health care, as a way to undermine the health care law.
Bachmann has a month to figure out what plans work best for her family's needs. The ACA computer glitches are slowly being finessed so hopefully they'll have a successful enrollment encounter when they finally make the plunge.
