Leaked emails reveal John Boehner betraying GOP on Obamacare and immigration
Leaked emails show that before the House speaker, John Boehner,demanded an end to health-care subsidies for congressional staffers, he worked behind the scenes to procure them.
Behind-the-scenes, Boehner and his aides worked for months with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), and others, to save these very same, long-standing subsidies, according to documents and e-mails provided to POLITICO.
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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was also aware of these discussions, the documents show.
In mid-July, as Boehner and Reid were trying to schedule a private meeting with Obama, the speaker’s top aide said it was okay to use a cover story to conceal the true nature of that prospective White House gathering.
“We can’t let it get out there that this is for [Boehner] and [Reid] to ask the President to carve us out of the requirement of Obamacare,” Sommers told David Krone, Reid’s top aide in a July 17 e-mail obtained by POLITICO.
“This is a little bit more difficult because it isn’t a routine meeting, as [Nancy] Pelosi and [Mitch] McConnell won’t be there. I am even ok if it is the President hauling us down to talk about the next steps on immigration.”
After Krone suggested that the White House press office might float that the Boehner-Reid-Obama meeting was on immigration, Sommers said he wasn’t concerned about what cover story was just as long as the real reason behind the meeting wasn’t disclosed.
“I really don’t care what is is about[,] it just can’t be about what we know it is about!” Sommers told Krone.
Boehner and Reid’s offices also circulated some draft legislation to fix the problem, although none was ever introduced.
They considered — briefly and “not seriously,” according to the speaker’s office — making all House staffers part of the “Committee of the Whole” in order to get around the insurance-exchange requirement. Committee staffers were not required to enroll in exchanges.
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