No, it’s not a new indie band, it’s an aspect of the health care reform debate that just might end up being important. Remember back to last summer? Of course you do. Tiger Woods was a respected public figure, Beau Biden was going to announce his candidacy any day now, and teabagging wingnuts were screaming all sorts of nonsense at Congressmen. One of the not-so-nonsensical things they were yelling, though, was the challenge of, “If the public option/exchanges is so great, why don’t you use it?” Well, this time the Senate listened.
As Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic points out, there is an interesting and little known section in the Senate bill entitled “MEMBERS OF CONGRESS IN THE EXCHANGE”. This was originally an amendment introduced by Chuck Grassley (R-IA) of all people, probably as a game of legislative chicken that he lost. To put it simply, the amendment states that the government may only offer to members of Congress and their staffs, health plans that are either “created under this Act (or an amendment made by this Act)” or are “offered through an Exchange established under this Act (or an amendment made by this Act)”. I think the first part would refer to a public option, so this basically means that Congressmen are going to get their health insurance through the exchanges.
The significance, as Cohn says, is that Congress now has “a skin in the game.” The exchanges, although initially affecting relatively few people, will end up being very important, because they hopefully will be the basis for getting us away from the idiotic employer-based insurance system we have now. And with members of Congress getting their insurance off of the exchanges, we can be pretty sure they won’t let them get too bad. It’s like mandating that the school board and administrators eat only cafeteria food. You know “mystery meat” and cardboard-flavored pizza won’t last very long.
This certainly won’t allay the fears of all the skeptics, but it might help an important piece of the reform puzzle from being neglected.