What Are the Odds of This Law's Surviving?

The Senate Finance Committee, in the legislative equivalent of a show trial, has voted unanimously to force Members of Congress and their staffs to choose their health insurance from the proposed insurance exchanges beginning in 2013.

The exchanges, under health care legislation being currently considered, would be the one-and-only-stop shop for health insurance for the public, and it would look unseemly for politicians to exempt themselves in favor of the VIP health plans they currently enjoy.

Of course, it's easy to vote for something that makes you look like one of the public when the vote doesn't mean anything. By the time this provision gets to the full Senate floor, however, it'll be invisibly swept under the rug and forgotten forever.

It would be sheer delusion on our part to think that the politicians who enact our laws ever have any intention of following them themselves. They routinely exempt Congress from the laws they themselves pass, including sexual harassment and other acts they routinely engage (read: revel) in.

Currently, Congress and federal employees get to choose from a generous array of health plans administered by the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), which candidate Obama promised he'd extend to all Americans but which President Obama has conveniently forgotten in favor of "Medicare for all" and rationing for the elderly.

There's no way the Congressional elite is going to give up its exclusive, VIP health packages. While the rest of us will be forced onto a health care dole, our politicians will continue to have gold-plated private care that knows no boundaries.