WASHINGTON -- Some progressive organizations have been making a push in recent days for incoming congressional Republicans to drop their government-sponsored health care on the grounds that keeping the plans would be hypocritical. 
 
 The incident started after incoming Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) complained loudly during freshmen orientation that his coverage wouldn't start immediately upon taking office. It took a new turn when Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Penn) and Bobby Schilling (R-Ill.) both said they would, in fact, forgo the coverage. It escalated even further when White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs called out Harris for the "irony," and the municipal workers union AFSCME applied a similar charge to the whole GOP shortly thereafter. 
 
 "These Republicans want to repeal health reform, putting the insurance companies back in charge and putting affordable coverage out of reach of millions of Americans," said AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee. "If they enroll in the taxpayer-funded health care system provided to members of Congress, they deserve to be denounced as hypocrites." 
 
 There is an apparent double standard with respect to lawmakers trying to reduce health care for American workers while taking a subsidy for health care for themselves. And in a Public Policy Poll released on Tuesday, a full 53 percent of respondents (and 58 percent of Republicans) said that if a congressman is opposed to the president's health care reform law, he or she should decline to participate in government-sponsored health care. 
 
 But another cudgel sits there on the sidelines waiting to be used by trouble-making Democrats. If the incoming Republican Congress is so concerned about the use of taxpayer funds, it could start by foregoing taxpayer-funded health care. How much money that would save is impossible to pinpoint with great accuracy. But it's possible to make some reliable estimates. 
 
 According to the Los Angeles Times, "the plan most favored by federal workers is Blue Cross Blue Shield, which covers a family for about $1,030 a month." Of that total, "taxpayers kick in $700." So far there are 242 Republicans set to be seated in the incoming House of Representatives (that could only go higher) and 47 Republicans in the Senate. The taxpayer bill for insuring all those members over the course of a single year comes to just over $2.4 million ($700 X 12 months X 289 members). 
 
 Chump change? Yes, it is. That said, chump change seems to always at the heart of the most provocative political battles. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) made a big issue over the fact that $1 million was being appropriated for a Woodstock museum in upstate New York. 
 
 UPDATE: Pete Sepp, the Executive Vice President of National Taxpayers Union -- one of the ultimate penny-pinching organizations in the D.C. area -- calls opting out of health care a "symbolic and not insignificant" gesture for congressional Republicans. 
 
 "If lawmakers are looking for ways to say that they feel solidarity with the American people this might be one way to do it," said Sepp. "And, again, if you are looking at dollar amounts that's equivalent or a little more of equivalent to [congressmembers] taking a pay cut of about five percent. And, again, we have heard a lot of pledges to reduce the overall budget of Congress by ten percent. So opting out of health care coverage is one place to start." ||||| One of the country’s largest labor unions has demanded Republican lawmakers skip congressional health insurance because the party voted against the health-care overhaul. 
 
 The argument: If you don’t support government health care, you shouldn’t enroll in government health care, says the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. 
 
 “These Republicans want to repeal health reform, putting the insurance companies back in charge and putting affordable coverage out of reach of millions of Americans,” AFSCME President Gerald McEntee said in a statement. 
 
 It’s a bit more complicated than that. The debate over the health overhaul largely centered over how much Washington should get involved in health insurance for those employed in the private sector. 
 
 Lawmakers, by contrast, take home a salary from the federal government. Most House members get $174,000 a year. 
 
 “This has nothing to with ObamaCare,” said Michael Steel, spokesman for presumptive House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio). “Boehner, like Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi, Sen. [Harry] Reid and tens of millions of Americans, receives health coverage through his employer.” 
 
 Still, the issue has become a rallying cry for liberal activists after GOP Congressman-elect Andy Harris, a doctor from Maryland, complained he would have to wait four weeks until his new insurance took effect. The White House got involved this week when Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Mr. Harris faces a “particularly interesting dilemma.” 
 
 Incoming GOP Rep. Bobby Schilling of Illinois said during his campaign he wouldn’t take health insurance as a congressman in an effort to save taxpayers money. His son and spokesman, Terry Schilling, said the decision had nothing to do with the health-care law. ||||| Republican lawmakers aired sharp concerns about their party’s quick push to repeal the Affordable Care Act at a closed-door meeting Thursday, according to a recording of the session obtained by The Washington Post. 
 
 The recording reveals a GOP that appears to be filled with doubts about how to make good on a long-standing promise to get rid of Obamacare without explicit guidance from President Trump or his administration. The thorny issues lawmakers grapple with on the tape — including who may end up either losing coverage or paying more under a revamped system — highlight the financial and political challenges that flow from upending the current law. 
 
 Senators and House members expressed a range of concerns about the task ahead: how to prepare a replacement plan that can be ready to launch at the time of repeal; how to avoid deep damage to the health insurance market; how to keep premiums affordable for middle-class families; even how to avoid the political consequences of defunding Planned Parenthood, the women’s health-care organization, as many Republicans hope to do with the repeal of the ACA. 
 
 [In private meeting, Pence vows ‘full’ probe into voter fraud claims] 
 
 “We’d better be sure that we’re prepared to live with the market we’ve created” with repeal, said Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.). “That’s going to be called Trumpcare. Republicans will own that lock, stock and barrel, and we’ll be judged in the election less than two years away.” 
 
 (Jayne Orenstein/The Washington Post) 
 
 Recordings of closed sessions at the Republican policy retreat in Philadelphia this week were sent late Thursday to The Post and several other news outlets from an anonymous email address. The remarks of all lawmakers quoted in this story were confirmed by their offices or by the lawmakers themselves. 
 
 “Our goal, in my opinion, should be not a quick fix. We can do it rapidly — but not a quick fix,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.). “We want a long-term solution that lowers costs.” 
 
 [Republicans attempt to hash out health-care plan] 
 
 Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) warned his colleagues that the estimated budget savings from repealing Obamacare — which Republicans say could approach a half-trillion dollars — would be needed to fund the costs of setting up a replacement. “This is going to be what we’ll need to be able to move to that transition,” he said. 
 
 Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Tex.) worried that one idea floated by Republicans — a refundable tax credit — would not work for middle-class families that cannot afford to prepay their premiums and wait for a tax refund. 
 
 Republicans have also discussed the idea of generating revenue for their plan by taking aim at deductions that allow most Americans to get health insurance through their employers without paying extra taxes on it. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who has drafted his own bill to reform the Affordable Care Act, said in response, “It sounds like we are going to be raising taxes on the middle class in order to pay for these new credits.” 
 
 Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Tex.), who chairs a key tax-writing subcommittee, countered, “I don’t see it that way,” adding that there is “a tax break on employer-sponsored health care and nowhere else” equal to $3.6 billion over 10 years. 
 
 “Could you unlock just a small portion at the top to be able to give that freedom [to self-employed Americans]? That is the question,” Brady said. 
 
 Rep. John Faso (R-N.Y.), a freshman congressman from the Hudson Valley, warned strongly against using the repeal of the ACA to also defund Planned Parenthood. “We are just walking into a gigantic political trap if we go down this path of sticking Planned Parenthood in the health insurance bill,” he said. “If you want to do it somewhere else, I have no problem, but I think we are creating a political minefield for ourselves — House and Senate.” 
 
 The concerns of rank-and-file lawmakers appeared to be at odds with key congressional leaders and Andrew Bremberg, a top domestic policy adviser to Trump, who have laid out plans to repeal the ACA using a fast-track legislative process and executive actions from the administration. However, these leaders acknowledged in Thursday’s meeting, as they have before, that Obamacare cannot be fully undone — or replaced — without Democratic cooperation. 
 
 That and other aspects of the unfinished GOP plan prompted several wary lawmakers to urge their leaders to move more deliberately — even as the Trump administration appears to be moving ahead with repeal. Thursday, the White House ordered federal health officials to immediately halt all advertising and other outreach activities for the critical final days in which Americans can sign up for 2017 health coverage through Affordable Care Act marketplaces. 
 
 [White House stops ads, outreach for last days of 2017 ACA enrollment] 
 
 Of particular concern to some Republican lawmakers was a plan to use the budget reconciliation process — which requires only a simple majority vote — to repeal the existing law, while still needing a filibuster-proof vote of 60 in the Senate to enact a replacement. 
 
 “The fact is, we cannot repeal Obamacare through reconciliation,” McClintock said. “We need to understand exactly: What does that reconciliation market look like? And I haven’t heard the answer yet.” 
 
 Several important policy areas appeared unsettled. While the chairmen of key committees sketched out various proposals, they did not have a clear plan for how to keep markets viable while requiring insurers to cover everyone who seeks insurance. 
 
 At one point Cassidy, a physician who co-founded a community health clinic in Baton Rouge to serve the uninsured, asked the panelists a “simple question”: Will states have the ability to maintain the expanded Medicaid rolls provided for under the ACA, which now provide coverage for more than 10 million Americans, and can other states do similar expansions? 
 
 “These are decisions we haven’t made yet,” said House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.). 
 
 Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-N.J.) worried that the plans under GOP consideration could eviscerate coverage for the roughly 20 million Americans now covered through state and federal marketplaces and the law’s Medicaid expansion: “We’re telling those people that we’re not going to pull the rug out from under them, and if we do this too fast, we are in fact going to pull the rug out from under them.” 
 
 Republicans are also still wrestling with whether Obamacare’s taxes can be immediately repealed, a priority for many conservatives, or whether that revenue will be needed to fund a transition period. 
 
 And there seems to be little consensus on whether to pursue a major overhaul of Medicaid — converting it from an open-ended entitlement that costs federal and state governments $500 billion a year to a fixed block grant. Trump and his top aides, including counselor Kellyanne Conway, have publicly endorsed that idea. But doing so would mean that some low-income Americans would not be automatically covered by a program that currently covers 70 million Americans. 
 
 Many of the concerns aired Thursday were more political than policy-oriented. Faso’s remarks about Planned Parenthood generated tepid applause. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) said this month that he expects the House to pursue the organization’s defunding in the reconciliation bill. 
 
 Those expressing qualms included some of the top congressional leaders who are in line to draft the health-care legislation. Alexander, for one, is chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. 
 
 Ryan and other leaders have said they intend to pursue a piecemeal approach, following the reconciliation bill with smaller ones that address discrete aspects of reform. 
 
 Bremberg, chairman of Trump’s domestic policy council, offered little detail in the session about particular executive actions the Trump administration intends to take or what legislative proposals the new president favors. 
 
 Instead, he pointed to the executive order Trump signed last week, his first, as proof of his commitment to undoing Obamacare’s mandates and said his choice of Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) to be his health and human services secretary “should speak volumes to people trying to understand what he’s hoping to achieve.” 
 
 “This is not a technocrat,” Bremberg said. “This is an experienced, compassionate doctor who has experienced the health-care system firsthand and who has been a leader here in Washington trying to address the policy reforms that need to take place. Having both of those in a secretary is going to be very important and very powerful.” 
 
 Even as Bremberg offered few details about what the president plans to do, he emphasized that last week’s executive order “repeatedly” used phrases “such as ‘to the maximum extent permitted by law’ ” to enable his political appointees to start dismantling the ACA by executive authority. 
 
 “I’m sure many of us have been very concerned about the interpretation of that phrase in the last six or so years,” Bremberg quipped, referring to the previous administration. “The president has now officially given direction [not only] to HHS, but to all of these agencies that have responsibility . . . to exercise all available discretion to begin helping the American people and to begin fixing our health-care system.” 
 
 The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Bremberg’s remarks. 
 
 Faso warned that by defunding Planned Parenthood in the reconciliation bill, “we are arming our enemy in this debate.” 
 
 “To me, us taking retribution on Planned Parenthood is kind of morally akin to what Lois Lerner and Obama and the IRS did against tea party groups,” he said, a reference to accusations that the Internal Revenue Service improperly targeted conservative political groups for audits. 
 
 Faso continued: “Health insurance is going to be tough enough for us to deal with without having millions of people on social media come to Planned Parenthood’s defense and sending hundreds of thousands of new donors to the Democratic Senate and Democratic congressional campaign committees. So I would just urge us to rethink this.” 
 
 Robert Costa, Juliet Eilperin and Paul Kane contributed to this report.
– Progressives are issuing a challenge to incoming Republican House members: If they are so dead-set on repealing health care reform, they shouldn't accept the taxpayer-funded congressional health plan. The fracas started when newly elected Rep. Andy Harris made a fuss during an orientation because his coverage didn't begin right away, notes the Huffington Post. If all Congressional Republicans declined, it would save an estimated $2.4 million. "Chump change? Yes, it is," writes Sam Stein at HuffPo. "That said, chump change seems to always at the heart of the most provocative political battles." Others: The issue may be opening for Democrats to "create tension between the newly elected officials and the Tea Partiers who put them there by highlighting the disconnect between the freshmen Republicans' rhetoric and their actions," writes Tom Jensen for Public Policy Polling. Republicans, however, say Democrats are distorting the issue—they want employer-based coverage to be the dominant system, and members of Congress are employed by the government, notes the Wall Street Journal. "Still, the issue has become a rallying cry for liberal activists," writes Danny Yadron.