U.S. Reps. Tim Scott, Mick Mulvaney, Trey Gowdy and Jeff Duncan all voted last month to repeal what they and their Republican colleagues scathingly call "ObamaCare," the landmark bill the president signed into law last March to provide federally mandated coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans. Yet South Carolina's four freshman representatives aren't repealing their own new memberships in the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program, a heavily taxpayer-subsidized plan with broad choices, generous provisions and low premiums thanks to discounted rates for its 8 million policyholders nationwide. Norman Ornstein, with the conservative American Enterprise Institute in Washington, thinks there's a gap between the talk and the walk of lawmakers who oppose "the federal takeover of healthcare" while accepting federal medical benefits.
