New GOP Rep. Andy Harris gets irate over lack of instant health insurance

Yes, Dr. Harris, newly elected congresscritter and anesthesiologist, has gotten what my Dad would call a “Rude Awakening”.  From Steven Benen’s Political Animal post at Washington Monthy, we get the following exchange related by someone who was there:

“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,” said a congressional staffer who saw the exchange. […]

“Harris then asked if he could purchase insurance from the government to cover the gap,” added the aide, who was struck by the similarity to Harris’s request and the public option he denounced as a gateway to socialized medicine.

Harris, a Maryland state senator who works at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore and several hospitals on the Eastern Shore, also told the audience, “This is the only employer I’ve ever worked for where you don’t get coverage the first day you are employed,” his spokeswoman Anna Nix told POLITICO.

Steve adds:

Harris wants to know “what he would do without 28 days of health care”? I don’t know, Andy, what have tens of millions of Americans, including millions of children, done without access to quality health care for years? Why are you entitled to government-subsidized health care, but they’re not? What will those families do after you repeal the Affordable Care Act? Wait for tort reform to magically cover everyone?

What an embarrassment.

{{RD pauses}}

I’d laugh but I don’t think this is funny.  I can just imagine someone like Harris expostulating loudly over the fact that some poor woman whose family is recently unemployed and can’t pay for COBRA couldn’t afford to pay the bill for the epidural she had during childbirth.  It’s not funny that his 5 kids will not be covered until February.  It’s not funny that he’s been sheltered from the reality of the probationary period that everyone I know has to suffer through.  It’s not funny that some district in Maryland will be represented by a dolt.  And it’s not funny that he will presumably learn nothing from this, given his party affiliation.

Satisfying, but not funny.