U.S. senators and staff trying to get a back-door benefit from Obamacare have now been accused of a formal ethics violation. Congress’ official response has been silence — except for one senator who again last weekend called for an investigation.

“Some of my Senate colleagues worked to block this investigation,” U.S. Sen. David Vitter , R-La., told LifeZette on Sunday, referring to an official inquiry requested by outside conservative groups late last month. “But I’m hopeful the House will take up this investigation so we can end Washington’s special Obamacare exemption.”

A group of conservative thought leaders and policy advocates is challenging the ability of senators and their staff to directly benefit from taxpayer-supported parts of the Obamacare health insurance program.

The group filed on official request June 25 for an ethics investigation into what it calls potential “fraud” that could illegally “enable senators, Senate staffers, and their families to purchase health insurance on the District of Columbia’s Small Business Exchange. … [T]his potentially unlawful arrangement allows senators, senate staffers, and their families to receive taxpayer-funded premium subsidies without regard to household income.”

The call for an investigation comes from individuals who lead conservative organizations, including:

  • Naomi Lopez-Bauman, director of healthcare policy at the Goldwater Institute;
  • George Landrith, president of Frontiers of Freedom;
  • David Bozell, president of ForAmerica;
  • Jenny Beth Martin, cofounder of Tea Party Patriots;
  • Adam Brandon, CEO of FreedomWorks;
  • Seton Motley, president of Less Government;
  • Thomas Fitton, president of Judicial Watch;
  • Sean Noble, president American Encore;
  • Phil Kerpen, president, American Commitment; and
  • Thomas Schatz, president of Council for Citizens Against Government Waste.

It’s a battle Louisiana’s Vitter has been fighting for years to make Obamacare apply equally to all Americans, via his Senate Bill 16, titled “No Exemption for Washington from Obamacare Act.”

“We hear all these horror stories (about Obamacare) and the fact remains that Washington has an exemption from all that pain,” Vitter, who is running for governor of Louisiana this year, said several weeks ago.

He’s tried to offer S. 16 as an amendment to several bills, and as a stand-alone bill, requiring that all federal employees — including the president, vice president and political appointees — be enrolled in Obamacare with no exemptions.

But with no congressional response since the June 25 complaint from the outside groups, Vitter on Sunday endorsed their request.

Congress, it seems, believes itself to be a small business with fewer than 50 employees, and thus qualified for taxpayer subsidies for their health insurance.

The 1995 Congressional Accountability Act was supposed to ensure that governing bodies are subject to the same laws as everyone else. But Vitter has identified, and is fighting, one particular backdoor exemption.

Congress, it seems, believes itself to be a small business with fewer than 50 employees, and thus qualified for taxpayer subsidies for their health insurance.

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Vitter, chairman of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, is trying to subpoena documents from the District of Columbia’s Obamacare exchange as part of his probe into whether congressional staffers or lawmakers falsified records to receive subsidies for which they otherwise would not qualify.

More than 13,500 people who work for Congress are enrolled in the health plans, yet Congress certified itself as a small business, with fewer than 50 employees, to qualify for the subsidies.

The conservative nonprofit foundation Judicial Watch Inc. obtained some D.C. Obamacare exchange documents through a Freedom of Information Act request, but much of the information was redacted, prompting Vitter to try to subpoena the unredacted records.

Now, other conservative organizations are joining the push for a full investigation.

“The more that Congress experiences the laws it passes, the better,” said Grassley.

Nearly 20 groups, led by American Commitment, sent a letter June 15 to Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, urging an inquiry of House and Senate applications to D.C.’s Obamacare exchange. Other organizations signing the letter include the Club for Growth, Heritage Action, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, and Tea Party Patriots.

Vitter likens the legislative staffer situation to one many Americans face every day — some lose their jobs, and are on the hook for their total health insurance bill. He said Washington can improve Obamacare if lawmakers uLZ-info-thumb_Greener Pastures (4606)-12nderstand what it is like to live with it.

He has been shot down by this amendment’s nemesis, Democrat Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, in some particularly ugly battles. Reid even went so far as to call Vitter’s proposal “a stupid amendment.”

Adam Jentleson, a spokesman for Reid, said, “We are just following the law.”

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa in 2009 was able to insert language into the Affordable Care Act requiring all members of Congress and their staffs to get insurance through health exchanges.

“The more that Congress experiences the laws it passes, the better,” said Grassley at the time.

His amendment was weakened before final passage to exclude committee staff, although it still applied to lawmakers and their personal staffs.

Employment lawyers interpreted that to mean the taxpayer-funded health-insurance subsidies — which now range from $5,000 to $11,000 a year — given to those drawing a congressional paycheck would end, according to a report by John Fund in National Review.

That angered staffers from both parties, who warned of a “brain drain” if the provision survived, Fund wrote.  

“Under behind-the-scenes pressure from members of Congress in both parties, President Obama used the quiet of the August recess to personally order the Office of Personnel Management, which supervises federal employment issues, to interpret the law so as to retain the generous congressional benefits,” Fund wrote.

When Senate staff followed up by certifying the Senate as a small business, that completed what Vitter portrays as an end-run around the law. Vitter’s subpoena is meant to find out which staffers signed the documents, and under whose orders.

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