According to a Congressional Research Service report, 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.

In the past two months alone, 82-year-old Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX) was discovered to be living in an assisted-living facility with a dementia ward in her final months in office; 74-year-old Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) won a high-profile leadership position on the House Oversight Committee after revealing he is battling highly terminal esophageal cancer; 82-year-old Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) fell twice on Capitol Hill just months after blacking out during a press conference; 84-year-old former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) fell and broke her hip in Luxembourg; and 76-year-old Rep. John Larson (D-CT) appeared to suffer a stroke on the House floor. (Larson’s staff has said it was a bad reaction to a new medication.) Local Washington pharmacists have said they fill prescriptions for things like Alzheimer’s drugs written by staff in the OAP.

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. Aside from the OAP, members of Congress have access to Obamacare health plans.