Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown (R) doesn’t see anything wrong with the fact that he has voted to overturn the Affordable Care Act four times, in spite of the fact that it enables him to keep his 23-year-old daughter on his Congressional health plan. Brown told The Boston Globe that his daughter Ayla’s use of the coverage is in no way inconsistent with his criticism of the ACA, which most Republicans call “Obamacare.” Brown argues that the same coverage for young adults up to age 26 on their parents’ health plans could just as easily be required by individual states rather than by the ACA, which he says is “unconstitutional.”
“I’ve already voted to repeal it,” he said, “You know where I stand on this. This isn’t news.”
His opponent Elizabeth Warren’s campaign, however, paints Brown as a hypocrite.
Alethea Harney, spokesperson for Warren 2012 said, “Senator Scott Brown has gone Washington. He says he likes being able to keep his daughter on the family health insurance plan; what he doesn’t say is that he voted to stop other parents from doing the same.”
Unlike most Republicans, including presumptive nominee Governor Mitt Romney (R-MA), Brown isn’t trying to distance himself from Massachusetts’s 2006 health care law, which was passed under Gov. Romney. Brown’s objections to President Obama’s health care plan, he says are grounded in the fact that the Massachusetts law is better.
Drew Altman, president of the Kaiser Family Foundation told the Globe that while it is certainly possible that states will pass laws extending insurance coverage of dependents to age 26, many will not, creating an unequal patchwork of coverage across the country. Altman expressed skepticism of any new bill’s chances before the deeply divided, dysfunctional Congress.
“If you’re trying to envision a world without the [Affordable Care Act], where the court overturns the entire law as opposed to some of its provisions,” he said, “the first big question is, ‘Can a sharply divided Congress agree on anything related to the ACA?’”
