Posted on 12/26/2010 6:51:03 PM PST by Libloather
Rep.-elect Walsh will turn down government health insurance
By Jordan Fabian - 12/26/10 04:10 PM ET
Another newly elected Republican member of Congress says he will not accept the government-sponsored health insurance plan available to lawmakers.
Rep.-elect Joe Walsh (Ill.), who rode a wave of Tea Party support to surprisingly defeat three-term Rep. Melissa Bean (D) in November, said that he does not believe lawmakers should receive the benefits.
"I don’t think congressmen should get pensions or cushy healthcare plans," he told the Chicago News Cooperative.
Republicans who staunchly opposed President Obama's healthcare reform plan have come under pressure from Democrats and liberal activist groups to decline their government healthcare benefits upon taking office.
Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.) penned a letter to GOP leaders demanding that Republican members "walk that walk" and refuse their federally subsidized coverage.
"If your conference wants to deny millions of Americans affordable health care, your members should walk that walk," Crowley wrote to incoming House Speaker John Boehner (Ohio) and Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.). "You cannot enroll in the very kind of coverage that you want for yourselves, and then turn around and deny it to Americans who don't happen to be Members of Congress."
The push began in earnest after Rep.-elect Andy Harris (R-Md.) reportedly complained in a November private meeting that his government healthcare benefits did not begin immediately.
So far, incoming Reps. Bobby Schilling (R-Ill.) and Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) have declined their government health insurance.
But Walsh's wife is reportedly unhappy with her husband's decision: she has a pre-existing medical condition and will have to purchase her own insurance, according to the Chicago News Cooperative.
Are you telling me that a secretary who works for, say, the U.S. Forest Service or the Bureau of Indian Affairs has the same health care as a loser like Sen. Max Baucus (D-umbass, Montana)?
If so that’s news to me.
But even so: why should there be any distinction for federal employees and the rest of us? If I’m going to have my good health care ruined by Obamacare, and I think it will be, why should the fed folks get to make an end run?
But think about it, remember when the Democrats tried to assassinate Ronaldus Magnus? Did you see what happened next? He went to a civilian hospital. As a government employee at the time my insurance plan would have paid for any service I received at the same hospital. In fact, my youngest son had been born there just weeks before. My current plan doesn't cover that hospitalnow but instead allows me to go to the same hospital Vice President Cheney went to ~ a local county hospital in fact!
These guys sign up with the same half dozen programs the rest of us have available.
We all pay about 30% of the total premium cost. The other 70% is part of the retirement package ~ I earned it. It's simply deferred income.
Your local Congresscritter has pretty much the same deal except for being able to check into military facilities. I can't do that but I can travel around the country and my insurance will cover my treatment somewhere else if it's an emergency.
My current plan is with an HMO. My father is insured by Aetna. He's older but he checks into the same sort of hospital I would check into, and gets the same coverage, and everything else. It's a totally private plan ~ paid for as part of his retirement package with a company that's now defunct. All that's left is the trust fund to pay for his medical insurance.
This question that keeps popping up leads me to believe that a lot of you guys have never gotten health insurance.
http://www.opm.gov/insure/health/planinfo/index.asp This is a good page to go to see how the FEHB insurance program operates for federal employees and your Congresscritters.
Love it.
In terms of insurance, depends on what plan they choose. FEHB offers numerous options.
It's entirely possible that both would choose the same thing: standard option Blue Cross/Blue Shield. A very good plan but not a Cadillac one.
But as you suspect, there is a difference. Baucus can walk into the office of the Capitol Hill physician anytime he needs care; the agency secretary doesnt have that option.
http://www.opm.gov/insure/health/planinfo/2011/brochures/73-047.pdf#page=92 Go to page 90 to see what the monthly cost to a government employee or retiree is for Kaiser HMO services. The Congresscritters that belong to Kaiser here get the same price I get. Probably a full 1/4 of Congress goes to one of two facilities for services.
Are you effing kidding?
I have worked for and PAID for my health insurance all my life.
Look, I mean no offense, but don’t go blathering on about the challenges of paying your thirty percent of federal employee premiums. Good lord.
The way you and people like you go on makes me wonder what you’d do in an hourly-wage job, that gives you a week’s vacation for the first year, or maybe the first few years, and two weeks after that for ten years, and three after fifteen.
Try running your own little shop sometime and see how tough your present benefit package looks to you then. Put in 80 hours a week and sweep floors and interview half-educated applicants and wonder how much of your bottom line is bleeding out the back door, or the front-—for pete’s sake, man, WE PAY YOUR SALARY, YOUR BENEFITS, PROBABLY YOUR TRAVEL, YOUR CHILDCARE...and you find it in you to question what we have dealt with in our lives? Well, you are welcome, is all I can tell you.
Pinch me or shout to wake me up. WOW, I love this guy.
SO, STFU.
I am not one to stick up for Dems, but isn't that a little unfair, to blame the party for what one crazy a$$ Hinckley did to impress Jodie Foster?
The Democrat judges were the ones that made it tougher to stick guys like Hinckley into hospitals for forced treatment. They gotta’ take the blame for allowing him to run loose to shoot Ronaldus Magnus.
You sound like that crazy guy in Florida.
Congressmen pay a one-time price, IIRC, and have an onsite pharmacy & doctor office on Capitol Hill itself.
Federal installations have a nurse’s office, but if you aren’t a fed, you could fall over and the most anyone would do is call 911.
“FEHB, the Federal Employees Health Benefit program is not all that plush.”
You are misinformed. FEHB is a fantastic health care package. The best part of FEHB is that coverage can continue throughout retirement contrary to your assertion. You are correct that FEHB is highly subsidized by taxpayers especially after retirement. As usual, taxpayers get stuck the tab for first benefits provided to government employees.
That's how it works. We lose our FEHB plans, but we continue to pay for them, and get Medicare.
What you don't know about federal employment, FEHB and retirement is IMMENSE.
Most large industrial concerns have doctors on contract for a variety of services.
Is this abnormal or are we now like India where we step over the bodies.
BTW, if you fall over inside a federal facility they’ll get you to medical care. it’s the law.
The point I was trying to make is that Congressmen have medical care available to them and at lower out of pocket costs that is way beyond what others do, including secretaries and mechanics at federal facilities, including federal employees. Contractors and other visitors, not so much.
But yes. They will call 911 for you.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.