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PREZ AND PALS ARE IN THE BEST OF HEALTH CARE

‘THIS isn’t about me,” President Obama allows. “I have great health care.”

So the president should — but Obama’s checkups aren’t the problem. It’s the fact that our nation’s entire political class lives in an alternative health-care universe — and will do so even after the rest of us are stuck with the disaster of ObamaCare.

Start with the top White House staffers, assistants to the president. These are Obama’s closest advisers, the people who have his ear.

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Like most on the federal payroll, they have access to government-subsidized private insurance. But they can also get treatment above and beyond what is available anywhere else — courtesy of outstanding military medical staff on-site at the White House and at the National Naval Medical Center at Bethesda.

Bethesda is one of the world’s top hospitals, with a staff of more than 4,500. There, according to people familiar with the situation, Obama’s senior advisers have access to a health-care Shangri-La.

Prescriptions for any condition under the sun are written and the drugs swiftly dispensed; virtually unlimited tests and blood work are conducted; and any medical procedure, including in-patient surgery, is performed at no cost to the patient. (Any expenses above what private insurance covers are generally waived.)

As one former senior White House official put it: “If you were an assistant to the president and you needed open-heart surgery, you could have it done at Bethesda for free.”

There’s more. Someone who has received care at the naval hospital explains that once you arrive, “You are then met by an escort from the Executive Health Office, who takes you from specialist to specialist, with no waiting in lines anywhere.

“They just bring you in as soon as you arrive, and you generally see the chief of the department for whatever specialty you need if he’s available.”

Obama spokesman Reid Cherlin responded: “The president has repeatedly said that he’d like every American to have access to the same high-quality care that’s available to him, his family and his staff.”

But it’s unlikely that “government health care” will mean for the rest of us what it does for people like Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs, along with members of the president’s Cabinet.

Even further down the White House chain, perks are pretty sweet.

Low-level staffers have access to the White House Medical Unit, where they can receive care for virtually any non-major condition that ails them. Inoculations, ear infections, sore throats, allergy flare-ups, even basic ophthalmology — everything’s taken care of by excellent medical professionals. White House staffers don’t have to step outside their office building or pay a red cent.

People on Capitol Hill aren’t struggling either.

Members of Congress and their aides have access to the Office of the Attending Physician in the US Capitol, which, according to its Web site, provides “acute/urgent care for all that work on or visit Capitol Hill,” including “emergency evaluation for injuries and serious illnesses,” “free flu vaccinations,” “the administration of allergy shots [patients provide their own serum],” “physician referrals,” “travel advice and screenings,” “occupational exams and certifications,” and “beyond.”

For senators and representatives who pay a flat annual fee, the OAP will provide more medical care. And according to a congressional report, “Incumbent members of Congress are authorized to receive medical and emergency dental care in military-treatment facilities. There is no charge for outpatient care if provided in the National Capitol Region.”

It’s a far cry from an emergency room in a downtown DC hospital — or anywhere else in the country, for that matter.

OK, so it’s not in the nation’s best interests for the president’s chief of staff to spend five hours waiting to get an ingrown toenail looked at. But neither is it in America’s interests for the entire governing class to be out of touch when it comes to a matter like health care.

Because unlike, say, tax policy, health care is very personal. Having to wait five weeks for a doctor to see a sick child provokes a response that adding just one more layer to the tax code doesn’t.

Moreover, changes in virtually every other area of policy affect the political class just as they would the Average Joe.

Pols pay the same prices for goods made more expensive by the lack of free trade; tax hikes will hit the members of the Obama team, too (except, perhaps, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner). But not so with health care.

These may be some of the reasons why ObamaCare is meeting tougher-than-expected resistance outside of government corridors. For people who won’t be enjoying luxury care for the next several years, rationing and declining health-care quality are a big deal.

It would probably help Democrats if they listened to some of these concerns from across the country. Because “ObamaCare for thee, but not for me” just isn’t going to cut it.

Meghan Clyne was a speechwriter for First Lady Laura Bush and President George W. Bush.

clyne.meghan@gmail.com