Ironic example of the unintended consequences of the health care bill

Could the Congress in their rush to pass something they could call health care reform backfire in a small way? Maybe so. See this from the NYT. The bill may disallow the current members of Congress from their current health care coverage and more likely will not allow new members ( those not elected yet) from enjoying the coverage their plan offers.

Then again surely Congress could fix this by more legislation or some other procedural slight of hand.Interestingly, the section of the bill that is at issue seems to be worded in such a muddled up way as to make it unclear how to enforce it if at all.

The Congressional Research Office (see here for who they are) seem to exist in part to help congress figure out actually what they pass really means was unable to do so in this instance so badly constructed was this section of the bill. If they could not get the section of the bill that directly affected them right........

The CRO said this in a 8,100 word memo.

“This omission, [ how to resolve ambiguities in the statute] whether intentional or inadvertent, raises questions regarding interpretation and implementation that cannot be definitively resolved by the Congressional Research Service,” the report says. “The statute does not appear to be self-executing, but rather seems to require an administrating or implementing authority that is not specifically provided for by the statutory text.”

I guess the CRO will have lots to do if and when they attempt to see what sense the rest of the 2100 page bill makes.