Phil Kerpen, president of American Commitment, tells Newsmax that members of Congress have "basically committed fraud" by claiming to be a small business in order to continue to provide healthcare for themselves with taxpayer dollars.
"They filed false documents to get around the requirement in the Obamacare law that they lose their previous insurance coverage and go into the exchanges like everyone else," Kerpen told John Bachman on "Newsmax Now" on
Newsmax TV Monday. "That was something the American people had demanded."
"When it actually came time for it to happen, members of Congress of both parties didn't want to do it. They didn't want to lose taxpayer funding for their premiums for themselves and their staff," he said.
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"So they cut a deal with President Obama to allow those tax dollars to follow them into the Obamacare exchanges, but they had a big problem, which is the regular Obamacare exchange has no mechanism for an employer contribution," Kerpen said.
"What they did is they lied. They filed false documents, one claiming the U.S. House of Representatives has less than 50 employees, another claiming the U.S. Senate has less than 50 employees.
"And they went into the small business exchange pretending to be small businesses — and of those less than 100 employees of Congress in the small business exchange, over 13,000 people have signed up," Kerpen said.
According to the president of American Commitment, "this is an obvious and ongoing fraud."
However, Kerpen says that "there's still a mystery how exactly this got authorized, because the only version of the documents the public has seen have the names of the people who signed off on Congress being a small business redacted."
As a result, "we don't know exactly who authorized it. But this is an ongoing fraud, it's bipartisan, and it really is an insult to the American people.
"So many Americans are suffering the consequences of this law, and the idea that members of Congress and their staff would get out from under it is pretty offensive," Kerpen said.
The lawmaker who is leading the campaign against the alleged Obamacare fraud is Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter, who is trying to get all lawmakers and their staffers to sign up for Obamacare.
Both Senate Republicans and Democrats are pushing back against an effort by Vitter to
investigate alleged fraud committed by lawmakers and their staffers.
Kerpen told Newsmax that he's "not surprised the Democrats are a party to this fraud because anything to prevent reopening Obamacare is good with them. But it is disappointing that so many Republicans don't see that suffering some short-term pain for themselves and their staff could be a good thing if it means that we could reopen the Obamacare law, put some pressure on the Democrats."
"I don't know what the reason is that Vitter hasn't gotten more support from Republicans, but it has been disappointing," he said.
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