Hello!
Thank you for your interesting comments and information. I agree with some of what you suggest. For example, what’s this bit about “underserved communities”?
To me an underserved community is one where their city refuses to send police or where the garbage is only picked up once a month. An area that is in dire straights because of poverty and joblessness is not underserved. In most cases it is instead a community full of people who were addicted to and enslaved by LBJ’s Great Society.
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I agree. Better yet give retirees and the American people the same insurance
Your statement explains perfectly why Congress should use those coverages. Congress is the only one who can fix those horrible broken systems but today they have no incentive to as they have better Cadillac coverage paid for by taxpayers.
Totally agree. Government contractors get sweet deals and retirement plans that the rest of us don’t. BAH is an example. They are part of the swamp too!
That point is valid. But I don’t agree with the proposal. That’s obviously never going to happen.
They should actually be provided zero healthcare and buy it on the healthcare.gov marketplace like me.
Best idea ever! And it’s not portable, so they don’t still have healthcare insurance coverage when they leave this position… just like the rest of us.
Current figures suggest 27-28M Americans don’t have healthcare insurance.
So maybe Congress shouldn’t get any insurance at all and it be mandatory they pay “out of pocket” for all healthcare and those expenses be public and transparent.
The only down side is the argument that only the rich would be able to afford to serve in Congress, but let’s face it pretty much only the rich are able to run and get elected anyway.
The upside is Congress wouldn’t be working to fix healthcare insurance, they would be working to fix healthcare pricing resulting in removing insurance from the system altogether. Imagine a world where you don’t pay premiums to a middleman “just in case” and instead people could actually afford to pay for the service when needed.
Most people don’t realize insurance is the primary driver of healthcare costs, not the provider care, insurance does’t add value, insurance extracts value. Insurance has been so good at extracting value they now own many of the hospitals, hospital networks, urgent cares, and buying out the remaining small private practices. As an example, United Healthcare now employs over 70,000 doctors. The reason? So the insurers can extract even more money. You buy their insurance, you use there doctors, often fill your meds at their pharmacies - they prohibit you from going outside their networks which makes coverage and care worse, and it’s much easier to deny claims - making them even more profitable because they keep your premiums and don’t cover your care.
Agreed and they should only have the same opinion, that we have when choosing a plan, no special treatment for them, they are no different then the rest of us, except that they get better healthcare plans they don’t pay out of there own pockets like we have to.
and should be required to put their health info online like the rest of us. I can tell you with 1000% certainty, 3rd party companies are getting into these files… you’ll never hear about it tho. The info can be used by hiring companies, insurance companies, etc … They’re not secure.
I have to disagree with this one. We should WANT to attract the best and most qualified people to lead our country. One of the ways to do that is to offer the best in healthcare. What would it really save not to do so?
I believe that members of congress need to have the same health care as any other American citizen. They don’t deserve privilege at all they are suppose to represent we the people. Lets go back to original founders had in mind for elected officials 2 terms and no special treatment went back to regular jobs no benefits none!!!
100 percent agree! The government should also be denied any pain management of any opioid because they could get addicted like the US citizens theyve abandoned and left yo suffer after surgeries,with chronic illnesses and cancer treatments. And they should be given haldol at any emergency room they go to for pain management even if it is against their will. THIS is what they are doing to us CRIMES against humanity
Agreed. No special treatment. (We can take this up again once they actually do something significant enough to warrent it).
All I really want is a policy that covers catastrophic events like cancer. I don’t want to pay for an expensive policy that covers routine care or lifestyle issues. Obama care prevents these policies from being sold and forces insurance companies to cover many things that should not be covered and are a waste such as so called “transition surgeries”.
And a cap on their wages!! They can’t make laws and rule for the public if they don’t live how we do!!
That’s a really good point you’ve raised. I think it’s pretty unlikely that Congress would vote to cut their own benefits, but it does spotlight some serious ethical issues about how different their healthcare is from ours. It’s like, if they’re not living with the same system, how do we know they’re making decisions that reflect our needs rather than just protecting insurance industry profits? !
Maybe this could be addressed with something like The Insurance Accountability and Transparency Act (IATA). That could be a way to push for changes that make the system fairer for everyone, not just those in power.
No, members of congress get healthcare through the VA only.
Are we trying to force an upgrade of something here? ROFL!
