New GOP Rep: I Have to Wait to Get Health Care?

Maryland's Andy Harris can't understand why benefits don't kick in for a month
By Polly Davis Doig,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 16, 2010 7:58 AM CST
New GOP Rep: I Have to Wait to Get Health Care?
Maryland State Sen. Andy Harris, a Republican challenging incumbent Democratic Rep. Frank Kratovil of Maryland's 1st Congressional District, Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2010.   (AP Photo/Steve Ruark)

For a Republican who campaigned on repealing ObamaCare, Andy Harris had a rather unusual question at a meeting on congressional benefits yesterday: Dude, where's my health care? Harris, an anesthesiologist and newly elected Maryland rep, demanded to know why his federal health insurance takes a month to kick in. “He stood up and asked the two ladies who were answering questions why it had to take so long, what he would do without 28 days of health care,” a witness tells Politico.

A rep for Harris said the congressman was simply underscoring the inefficiency of the health care system: “This is the only employer I’ve ever worked for where you don’t get coverage the first day you are employed,” Harris said at the meeting. (More Election 2010 stories.)

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