Tsongas: I won’t take ObamaCare because I have better options

Rep. Niki Tsongas (D-MA) manages to answer the question that Keith Ellison (D-MN) and the rest of her Obama-care supporting colleagues in both the House and Senate have avoided. The crowd, however, didn’t like the response very much, and lets Tsongas know it. At about the four-minute mark, one of Tsongas’ peons constitutents asks Tsongas whether she will commit to adopting ObamaCare for her own coverage and give up her so-called “Cadillac” or “gold-played” Congressional coverage, and that’s when Tsongas suddenly becomes concerned with protecting choice (via the boss):

CONSTITUENT: My question to you, Congresswoman Tsongas, is that if this is such a great plan, why did you opt out of it when you took the vote [loud applause, standing ovation]?

TSONGAS: People often say why don’t the American people have what those of us in Congress have. [Audience erupts] Let me explain what I have. Let me explain what I have. What I have is a tremendous array — you know, last year when I went to a discussion — what I have is a tremendous array of choices. And I made a choice based on what I was willing to pay for and what made sense in terms of coverage for me and my family. [Audience shouts out: "We want choice! We want choice!] This is essentially what we are creating for the American people. We are creating greater choice.

[Smattering of applause overwhelmed by boos.]

No, Representative Tsongas, you’re not creating choice.  You’re restricting choice, both explicitly and implicitly.  The ObamaCare bill explicitly forces private insurers into conformity in dictating coverages in order to qualify under state “exchanges”, which greatly reduces choice and will almost certainly wipe out at least some existing private plans.  Implicitly, the public option will undercut private insurers and give businesses a chance to opt out of providing coverage at all — which means as many as 83 million Americans will lose their insurance in the first ten years.  Thanks to the rules set up by ObamaCare, those people will have no choice at all but to take the public option.

But who won’t have to worry about losing their insurance?  Congress, of course.  They get to set the rules to ensure that ObamaCare applies to us but not to them.  Reminds one of royalty does it not?  That’s why the Tea Parties have become so popular these days, and one of many reasons why ObamaCare offends the sensibilities of Americans.

This axiom applies: Beware the cook who won’t eat his own food. Perhaps the best way to make that clear to Tsongas is to get her out of Congress and make sure she loses that Congressional coverage as fast as possible.

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