During today’s Senate Small Business & Entrepreneurship Committee hearing, Chairman David Vitter (R-La.) questioned Michael Cannon, Director of Health Policy Studies for the Cato Institute, on the illegality of Washington’s Obamacare Exemption.

Sen. Vitter has been investigating the process in which the U.S. House and U.S. Senate applied to the DC Healthlink small business exchange in order to receive federal taxpayer-funded subsidies that is unavailable to any other American.

Click here to watch Sen. Vitter question the Health Policy Studies Director of the Cato Institute.

Excerpts from the video below:

“Do you think there is any statutory basis for Members of Congress and their staff to get the subsidy they’re getting on the small business exchange?” – Sen. Vitter

“None whatsoever.” – Mr. Cannon

“In terms of statutory law – the Obamacare law, isn’t it clear that that DC small business exchange we’re talking about is limited to small employers of 100 employees or less, and it’s actually been limited by D.C. under the law to 50 employees or less?” – Sen. Vitter

“That’s correct. What this Committee tried to subpoena last week was the document that somebody filed on behalf of Congress with the DC exchange attesting that Congress had 45 employees, when in fact Congress has a thousand or more employees. So someone falsified a federal document in order to get Members of Congress into the DC SHOP exchange and facilitate these premium contributions that the OPM is not authorized by federal law to make. So there two problems there. There are the illegal subsidies that Members of Congress are receiving, and there’s the problem that someone falsified a federal document in order to facilitate those.” – Mr. Cannon

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