Matt Gunterman October 19th, 2007

This strong piece from the Herald-Leader’s John Cheves says it all about the rank vileness of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R) denying America’s children access to the same quality health care that McConnell has gotten his entire adult life from the government.

I think the most telling bit of information here that reveals McConnell’s current state of mind is this: McConnell’s office did not return repeated calls seeking comment for this story.

Silence has been McConnell’s response to the entire SCHIP fiasco. He and his staff have been putrid in their behavior; they can’t argue that fact. And the more and more they open their mouths, the more putrid they seem.

McConnell SCHIP stance criticized
OPPOSES EXPANDING TAXPAYER-SUBSIDIZED CARE, WHICH HE HAS

By John Cheves

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has warned about the slippery slope leading to “government-run health care for everyone” while rallying his colleagues against expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP.

But as a U.S. senator, McConnell gets government-run, taxpayer-subsidized insurance through the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program, including free outpatient treatment by doctors at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., and Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. When McConnell needed triple bypass heart surgery in 2003, he checked into the Naval Medical Center and was treated by the hospital’s clinical chief of cardiothoracic surgery.

“Sen. McConnell’s objection to this legislation gives disingenuousness a bad name,” said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, a non-profit, non-partisan advocacy group that is lobbying for SCHIP expansion.

If government-run health care is good enough for McConnell, “it should be provided to this nation’s disadvantaged children,” Pollack said.

Unlike other lawmakers who established themselves in the private sector before joining Congress — such as Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., a Hall of Fame baseball pitcher — McConnell has drawn government pay and benefits throughout his adult life: as a young Senate aide fresh out of law school, a U.S. Justice Department lawyer, Jefferson County judge-executive and for 23 years in the Senate.

[...]

McConnell’s office did not return repeated calls seeking comment for this story. In a written statement, his spokesman Don Stewart denied that McConnell’s warnings about “government-run health care” are hypocritical because the senator and his aides receive government-run, taxpayer-subsidized health insurance.

“We work for the government, and as our employer, the government pays the employer portion of our premium just as would be the case if we worked for any other company,” Stewart wrote.

[...]

Although members of Congress enjoy some exclusive health care perks, the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program is open to all federal workers. Run by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, it uses the government’s muscle as a huge employer to obtain lower group coverage rates from a choice of private insurers — much as many states’ SCHIP programs operate, Pollack said.

The government pays 72 percent of the average premium under the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., has proposed opening the program to uninsured Americans as part of her presidential campaign’s health care platform, so average citizens can get “the same choice of health plan options that members of Congress receive.”

Some Republicans refer to her plan as “socialized medicine.” Critics include GOP presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani.

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• Mitch McConnell , SCHIP
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