Georgia Democratic Senate candidate Michelle Nunn seemed to adopt an old Republican talking point on healthcare in her first ad of the 2014 election cycle.
Nunn, the likely Democratic candidate for Senate in Georgia said that “no one in Congress should get a subsidy for their own healthcare.”
The statement is rather vague. As The Huffington Post pointed out, Congressional lawmakers make too much money to qualify for a subsidy for health insurance.
Republicans have been pushing the no-congressional-subsidies talking point for more than a year. They’ve claimed that through Obamacare there is some kind of special healthcare loophole for members of Congress. House members went the next step with the so-called “Vitter amendment” which bars congressional staffers from obtaining subsidies when they purchase health insurance through the federal exchange, as they are required to do by law. Republicans threatened to add this amendment to a bill to fund the government during last October’s government shutdown — much to the annoyance of congressional staffers.
Nunn also said in the ad that members of Congress should not get paid if they don’t pass a budget — perhaps another echo to last fall’s government shutdown.
Nunn’s campaign clarified to TPM that she was speaking about “members of Congress” and that her call does not apply to Congressional staffers.
Watch Nunn’s new ad below:
(Photo credit: Youtube)
This post was updated.
