McDonnell Supports Cuccinelli on Health Care

State Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R-Va.) knows how to talk the talk, but does he walk it, too?

Cuccinelli filed a lawsuit against the federal health care bill in U.S. District Court as soon as it was signed into law. On Monday, Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-Va.) backed up Cuccinelli's actions, saying he had reviewed the attorney general's draft pleadings and concluded that Cuccinelli has "a meritorious claim," the Roanoke Times reported. 

McDonnell and Cuccinelli plan to invoke the Virginia Health Care Freedom Act, which passed the General Assembly last month. It states no resident can be forced to have health insurance or pay a fine or penalty for refusing coverage.

Cuccinelli calls the law an unconstitutional overreach of federal authority. (Other attorneys general have filed a similar lawsuit in Florida.)

But while he's been busy talking about how awful it is for the government to take care of its uninsured citizens, it turns out he's been using the government to take care of the health of him, his wife and their seven children -- and he's been doing it for years.

Before becoming attorney general, "The Cooch" served for almost eight years as a State Senator. Legislators are not usually eligible for state health insurance, but there is a provision for them to buy into state health care at the cost of full-time or virtually full-time (32 hours +) state employees, according to NotLarrySabato.

So when given the "public option" to insure his family through the state health insurance program, The Cooch chose to do so instead of insuring his family through his law firm. Why would he do this? The General Assembly program allows members to enroll their families for $105 per month -- or $1,260 per year. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, these benefits would cost about $13,375 for a family policy on the open market.

In other words, The Cooch saved about $100,000 over his eight years in the Virginia Senate by enrolling in the voluntary state health insurance program -- which he wouldn't even be eligible for with his work hours if the General Assembly hadn't carved out an exception for itself!

Forget the "welfare queens" of the 1990's. Now we've got the "health care queens" -- led by none other than Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.

Cuccinelli will speak at 4 p.m. at George Mason University's law school, where a protest has been planned on a separate Cuccinelli matter: his letter to Virginia’s public universities warning them that they could not adopt policies that prohibit discrimination on sexual orientation.

GMU officials stressed that, while the university "is not involved" with Cuccinelli's event because it's connected to the law school, it's still committed to maintaining its current policy of non-discrimination.

"It's extremely important to recognize that the university is on record as supporting non-discrimination," Peter N. Stearns, Provost and Executive Vice President of Academic Affairs at GMU, said in an interview on Connect2Mason. "And it has a current written policy that includes sexual orientation as one of its specified categories and we are committed to maintaining that policy."