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.
Well, that’s nice — but of course (and it’s not his fault), we can’t turn down health insurance — the government mandates that we buy it.
But that would violate the law he just voted for, which requires all of us to have health insurance, usually required to be provided by our employer.
If he thinks republican congressmen should be allowed to go without health insurance, he should walk that talk and give ALL americans the right to choose or not choose whatever insurance that they want.
He has accountants that pay for it all.
You must not have read basic literature about FEHB. Here is a link about post retirement benefits. The taxpayer subsidizes most of the premiums. This benefit is especially important for the large number of federal employees electing early retirement before Medicare.
http://www.myfederalretirement.com/public/165.cfm
THey should have health insurance while serving.
BASIC GOVERNMENT HEALTH CARE. NOT THE CADILLAC PLANS THEY HAVE NOW.
I have no idea what you refer. FEHB is heavily subsidized during retirement for federal employees.
Federal pensions are not funded. Perhaps you are referring to the savings plan in addition to your pension. I am not even sure if the savings plan is funded, at least the fixed income part of the savings plan. Federal pensions are sources of immense unfunded liabilities for taxpayers. The federal government does not even account for its unfunded pension liability. Federal employees contribute only a pittance for the pension and post retirement health care benefits.
I believe that we have had these exchanges before. You assert a poor federal retiree position. I assert that federal retirement benefits are fabolous, on par with the best state government plans. Congress has done a fine job of disguising the true value of retiree benefits for federal employees. Here are some of the fabulous benefits that you seem to deride perhaps hoping that taxpayers do not revolt about the costs of the benefits:
- Early retirement starting at age 57
- Catch up Social Security benefits from age 57 to 62
- Highly subsidized early retiree medical care that can continue throughout retirement. Even if you do not elect FEHB after age 65, you have received an enormous subsidy from age 57 to 65. The cost of a comparable private plan during this period could be more than $20,000 per year.
- Thrift savings plan with taxpayer contributions of 5 percent.
- Less than one percent employee cost for FERS benefits
The taxpayer contributes 16.2 percent (plus Social Security of 6.2 percent) in addition to paying for your early retiree medical benefits. Yet you still complain.
Whoever it was who said that liberalism is a mental disorder has a point. Where in the Constitution is Congress granted any Power to deny millions of Americans affordable health care? This imaginary Power to deny millions of Americans affordable health rests on the bizarre premise that Congress has the Power of health care - an incoherent notion that is an affront to the Constitution as well as to common sense.
The heath care available to members of Congress is the same health care available to most government employees and similar to to the insurance available to employees of large private corporations - it’s insurance proved by private-sector insurers purchased via the bargaining power of a large group.
IMO it’s counter-productive to claim that members of Congress should not be able to participate in this plan - it just makes it that much more difficult for anyone other than the independently wealthy to hold such office.
If there is anything scandalous about the situation, it’s that there is not way for many other citizens to participate in such groups.
The USPS pays OPM for their retirements IN ADVANCE and it also pays FEHB for their medical insurance costs IN ADVANCE ~ actually 5 years in advance.
You want me to think of you as Ol'Massa 'cause YOU pay the bills and yet you're just a leach on postal delivery services. You get that for free. Lord only knows if you actually pay your postage or maybe jury rigged your meter head to get free postage, but if you have, Heaven help you.
No, you are not my master. You didn't pay me out of your taxes.
Now you know.
BTW, you could have discovered that by reading my homepage on FR and thinking about it.
But that would violate the law he just voted for, which requires all of us to have health insurance, usually required to be provided by our employer.
If he thinks republican congressmen should be allowed to go without health insurance, he should walk that talk and give ALL americans the right to choose or not choose whatever insurance that they want.
Great comeback!
This system we have that so many want to describe as LUXURIOUS is the same as the system they don't want to go in to.
Gad!
BTW, my concern is that they'll roll FEHB into the state clearing houses ~ that will definitely degrade the program. There's no way state employees are going to provide the same level of response that we get from OPM.
As long as the insurance companies know the demographic of who they are serving (young, healthy letter carriers in top shape, for example) they'll bargain for a lower price with those who represent USPS employees. Once you throw the office workers in the mix, that's a problem.
"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."
Does Crowley have coverage? Or is he simply another slimy 'don't do as I do, do as I say' liberal?
Since I worked for my income, and all of it came out of non-tax revenues, your insults simply don't have the power you want them to have. My retirement is also an EARNED BENEFIT and my former agency actually paid for it and for my current medical insurance.
What you need to do is GET EDUMACATED and learn how the federal government really works.
You can be the BIG EXCEPTION that'll counsel the others to behave themselves
It’s OK.
I was just remembering two times at a federal installation that I fell on ice right outside the door that hadn’t been cleared well. I couldn’t even get a band-aid although I was pretty banged up, although I had asked about lying down in the medical office—and was prohibited. Turns out there were a bunch of folks that had fallen, and I was surprised about that.
This was not a post office.
Now I will be looking for every Liberal in Congress to send in more money in the form of personal checks to the IRS. If they don’t think the government has enough money, let them start by sending in more of their money. Obviously, they believe the government knows how to better allocate those dollars than the liberal congressman and senators.
I’ve always found it crazy how nobody ever asked why Buffett and Gates would give their personal fortune’s to a new organization that they had to create and manage when a great institution that they insist we all should be paying more too already exists in the IRS and US Government.
Apparently these two titans of business don’t trust the government to manage and distribute their personal fortunes but they have no problem advocating that you and I need to pay more to this corrupt entity for the “common good”.
The FEHB already covers a wide spectrum of Federal employees, including of course many office workers, and the non-postal and postal rates (at least here in IL) are very similar (in fact they are identical for the option I checked, $384 bi-weekly for the Blue Choice Family (High) plan).
here's no way state employees are going to provide the same level of response that we get from OPM.
Well, what you have there is the collision between theory and reality. For a lot of people the default assumption is that the smaller the unit of government, the more cost effective and responsive it will be.
As a business owner I know that this is often not the case.
For example I *far* prefer dealing with the IRS than with the Illinois Department of Revenue. There has never been a cast in which I could not straighten out a problem with the IRS if I had the appropriate documentation, while on several occasions I have given up and just paid disputed amounts to the ILDR because it was literally *impossible* to reach a competent individual to resolve the problem. (In fact, it was often impossible to reach anyone at all, and if you could reach someone, you could never reach them twice). Or, to give your another example, I never caught the slightest wiff of corruption from an IRS auditor, but I have been solicited for bribes by local (municipal and county) building code officials in three different states.
Obamakkkare has an ambition of FORCING people into using a system like FEHB
You with either like the concept of community rating, or you do not.
If you do not, you need to keep in mind that those of us earning an above average income still end up paying for much of the medical care of people who cannot or will not insure themselves.
It's not, you know, as though a "young, healthy, uninsured person ib top shape" who shows up at the ER after an automobile accident is gonna' say "Just put me back out on the curb and let me bleed out... I elected not to carry insurance, and my motto is 'Live Free and Die'".
At least, I have not seen it happen yet.
essentially the insurance that Obamacare mandates is roughly equivalent to the Federal Benefits Program, which is what a congressman gets, although congressmen get all kinds of special stuff, like in house doctors and full use of Bethesda’s facilities.
yes, actually they do. They can choose from the same plans
congresspeople have other perks, like congressional medical doctors and free use of certain facilities like Bethesda.
Appreciate it.
I really didn’t know that until this thread.
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