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If you're referring to the Federal Employees' Health Benefit Program (FEHBP), which covers current federal employees, postal workers, Congress, and retirees of the above-mentioned groups, I can speak with some knowledge of the program, because I have been covered by the FEHBP for thirty years.

It's a decent program but it lacks a lot of frills that many other plans have. That's why I have to laugh when critics of Obamacare hold up "Congress' Plan" as the great gold standard of health plans.

The FEHBP is a collection of hundreds of plans, most of them local HMO's (every state has their own version of the nationally-recognized HMO's.) In addition, there's a collection of union plans (Treasury Employees, GEHA GOvernment Employees, American Postal Worker's, Mailhandlers, National Association of Letter Carriers) which require an enrollee to be a member of their union and pay either full or associate member union dues to then enroll in their health plan);

Then there's the government Blue Cross program, which I am in. This plan is an amalgamation of what used to be High Option (pay more, get more bennies) and Low or Standard Option (the opposite). In the Federal Employees Blue Cross plan, here's one example of cost-cutting: the government has decided we must pay a 25 percent copay for surgeries.

For example, I have had two medically-necessary outpatient surgeries in recent years (getting pre-approval, using plan-approved and affiliated physicians and facilities) which cost me $2,000 (on an $8,000 bill) and $1,500 (on a $6,000 bill) I have had to set up a payment plan to pay off these amounts. These are the types of co-pays that Americans will have to pay if the Government gives them the 'favor' of enrolling them in 'the same plan as Congress'.

Unless the Government gives them something worse, something akin to the government HMO's. I was in two nationally-named plans over the years and got out of both of them because of substandard care, which included:

1) being treated by a nurse practitioner instead of a physician.

2) being turned away at the height of flu season (this happened while I was enrolled in two different HMO plans). In one case, I was told that the plan was timely in rescheduling me within 24 hours. I begged them to see me since I was sick and hacking away, but they refused to treat me as a walk-in and said the earliest they would schedule me was in 24 hours.

3) The HMO's that I was in would never give me a prescription strong enough to cure the problem. I would hack away for a week and go back and the nurse practitioner would say, We'll have to give you something stronger. Why didn't they give me the good stuff on the first visit? When I enrolled in Blue Cross and got treatment from a good neighborhood doctor (plan-approved but still my own choice for a doctor), I received much better care.

One more comment on the Blue Cross option that I'm in. They pay for root canals but they don't pay for the crown - which costs $1000 or more. They pay for eye examinations but when you take the prescription to get it filled, the eyeglass places tell me, your plan doesn't cover this, you have to pay full price. I have talked to many people over the years who have MUCH better health coverage than my government plan. They have all sorts of frills and are surprised that my plan doesn't cover it.

That said, I earned my health benefits by my own labor, and it would make me ill to see what benefits I have, reduced, just so that the government can enroll as many illegal aliens as possible and force reluctant citizens into my plan - then raise my costs and lower my benefits and treatment. I worked for my health benefits. It's one good benefit that I have.

I have sympathy for those without benefits, but there are emergency rooms to treat them. In my area, we have Catholic Charities and several clinics, one connected with the Presbyterian Church, that offer free treatment for those who cannot pay. My state has a good program for uninsured children. There are treatment options in place for those who are uninsured. I earned my coverage. My employer told us it was part of our salary at the time of contract negotiations.

Many of the uninsured that I know are women who work part-time. They're either covered by their spouses or they simply choose not to spend the money to enroll. They choose to spend that money instead on children's tuition, vacations, etc. All well and good, but why should they hold out their hands to the government and demand the same level of health coverage that I earned by working full time for an entire career?

Thanks for the info. but the plan you outlined, even if Congress does use it, is not the plan they want for us, friend.

Does it include radical rationing; long lines; or when they become senior citizens, be forced to have counseling every five years, or more often if they are sick, regarding alternatives for end of life care?

And here’s more on Obamacare that I don’t think you have:

“DEADLY DOCTORS
O ADVISORS WANT TO RATION CARE
By BETSY MCCAUGHEY

July 24, 2009 —

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Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. He has already been appointed to two key positions: health-policy adviser at the Office of Management and Budget and a member of Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research.
snip

Savings, he writes, will require changing how doctors think about their patients: Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, “as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others” (Journal of the American Medical Association, June 18, 2008).
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He says medical care should be reserved for the non-disabled,

www.defendyourhealthcare.us

So if according to Emanuel, the NONdisabled should not get medical care, what is to happen to adults and children with cerebral palsy, people with dementia, or Americans who have Parkinson’s?