[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 14867]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           CHECKING THE FACTS

  (Mr. COHEN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I'll tell you how indefensible it is. The 
provision that said that Congresspeople and their staffs were kept out 
of the Federal insurance plans and put into the exchanges was drafted 
by Charles Grassley, a Republican from Ohio, who said, on September 26, 
that he never intended that to take away the employer subsidies that 
congressional staffers have gotten for years and years and years, like 
every other employee in America. The Republican who drafted this 
himself said: That's not correct. It's not right.
  The Republicans have lied about health care, saying ObamaCare was the 
government takeover of health care. PolitiFact said it was the biggest 
lie of the year. They said there were death panels--biggest lie of the 
year. This will give them a triumvirate, the three biggest lies of the 
year. They're lying about their own employees, their own health plan.
  The fact is they were the only people in the country to be put out of 
the plan they were in and had their subsidies taken away. It's cruel 
and wrong. They deserve health care, too.

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