A Modest Healthcare Proposal
I would love to see an interim law get passed for heathcare reform that drops all elected legislators from their government healthcare as of January 1st. This will give legislators a few weeks to find their free-market healthcare options and sign up. I wonder how many of them would be unable to get insurance due to a pre-existing condition. How many would have to sign up in their home state, only to find that there are no providers in their network in DC.
This might light a fire under a few asses.
Tags: Health Care Reform, House of Representatives, U.S. Senate
There is a movement to do this, I saw a diary on this yesterday on Daily Kos. I think a lot of them are Medicare eligible so they wouldn’t have the problem unless we force them to go to the individual market. Most of them are pretty rich as well so they wouldn’t have as many affordability issues. I agree it might work though.
This is a good point, but also one that can be made by the opposition to the current Democratic version of health care reform. Representatives should not support a “public option” unless they are willing to use it for themselves and their own families. This would ensure the good quality of the resulting public option. No member of Congress should receive care superior to that of those they represent, whether Republican or Democrat.
Chris,
Republicans have already introduced an amendment to make Congresspeople take the public option and instead of a “gotcha” moment they hoped for Democrats started adding themselves as co-sponsors.
The entire Congress can support such a measure before the bill is put to a vote, but if the amendment is discarded, or some other circumstance results in a public option that our representatives are not subject to, their so-called intentions mean nothing. Some on the right criticize the health care reform on constitutional grounds, but many more fear that they will receive bad care in the future, based on their experiences with government bureaucracy and inefficiency in other areas. If a majority of Democrats promise to drop their superior health care plans, and submit themselves to the same public option that is offered to their constituents, much of the Republican opposition will lose their primary objections.
Chris, the Public Option would be one choice among many — not a single plan that would replace all others. So people eligible for buying a plan on the exchange would have multiple private options plus this. The requirement that legislators take the Public Option actually passed (almost all Dems voted for it)in the Finance Committee when it was proposed by repubs who thought they could kill the bill. It dit not make it into Reid’s reconciliation, but Sherrod Brown, Barbara Mikulski and Chris Dodd wand to be added as co-sponsors to the amendment. Interesting that the repubs do not want Dem co-sponsors, don’t you think?
Why should there be two sets of rules, one for Congress and elected politician and one for the rest of us.
I too agree that they should and must take the government option if they pass this bill. Also, there should not be any exemption to any union contracts. They too should be part of the bill and not an exemption. They can keep their current plan, but pay any extra tax that will be instituted.
I feel that the government should not run healthcare. We should eliminate the difficulty for small business and also individual with pre existing health issues from getting insurance. But dont feel that a government option is the answer