What has eluded attention is the highly secretive hospital, housed on Capitol Hill and funded by taxpayers, that provides both emergency and primary care to an aging political class, which some have come to describe as a
gerontocracy. It also runs
classified programs known only to some members of Congress.
In 2023, Congress
designated $4.2 million to the Office of the Attending Physician (OAP), a Navy-staffed hospital with multiple branches spread across Capitol Hill. The current attending physician, Dr. Brian Monahan, who serves as a rear admiral in the Navy, oversees a staff of dozens of Navy doctors, nurses, and technicians whose primary responsibility is providing care to members of Congress and the Supreme Court.
And while the office has long justified its existence by providing emergency care for an increasingly brittle class of politicians, it also quietly serves as a dirt-cheap clinic for elected officials, some of whom have voted to slash Medicare and Medicaid and abolish the Affordable Care Act, potentially taking coverage away from tens of millions of Americans.
Meanwhile, the OAP is more responsive than any treatment available to normal people. When McConnell fell recently, he emerged within hours in a wheelchair. It’s unknown precisely whether it came from the Office of the Attending Physician, but it’s a safe bet, because it
takes the average Medicare patient a face-to-face examination and a written prescription from the provider, plus a Medicare Part B application from your local Social Security office, access to an approved durable medical equipment supply store, in some cases a home evaluation, and a co-pay of 20 percent of the cost to secure such equipment.
According to a Congressional Research Service
report from last year, it costs a member of Congress just $650 a year for nearly unlimited medical care. That includes not only access to on-site X-rays, lab work, and physical therapy, but also free referrals to Washington-area military hospitals, which provide the best care in the country free to members, also on the taxpayer’s dime.
This subsidized concierge service is separate from a congressperson’s insurance coverage.
But at $54 a month for top-class care with no other co-pays or deductibles, it’s a pretty good deal for the men and women who dictate what kind of options the rest of us have.
https://prospect.org/health/2025-02-12- ... physician/