The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.
Help Wanted
“City Authorities Seeking Police Impersonator”–headline, Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, Va.), Sept. 29
NOTE: The following excerpt is from the BOTW archives for 4/22/10:
The Bureaucrat Who Slew the Monster That Ate Congress
Last week we noted that an ObamaCare provision requires congressmen and their staff members to buy insurance through state exchanges–which, pursuant to ObamaCare, will not exist until 2014. Since there is no effective date on the restriction for congressional employees, under a straightforward interpretation of the law, the federal government must stop providing insurance to these workers.
National Public Radio reports that the Office of Personnel Management has adopted a twisted interpretation of the law that avoids this problem:
In twin letters to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, OPM Director John Berry said his agency has concluded that the law’s requirement that lawmakers and their personal staffs change health insurance “is not effective until the state exchanges . . . become operational. The provision according [sic] has no current effect upon the eligible of Members of Congress or their staffs to participate in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.”
If only regular Americans had an “office of personnel management” to protect us from Congress’s mistakes.
For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.
