Healthcare Reform for All? Not Quite

By Jill Chapin

September 13, 2009

Buried in all drafts of any bill to restructure our healthcare are provisions that quietly exempt members of Congress, their staffs and their dependents from the effects of these bills. How come? I thought that if you like your insurance plan, you can keep it. Why do they need a written guarantee in the overhaul that explicitly protects their cadillac version?

Reread the above paragraph to make sure you fully digest its implications.

With Congress falling all over themselves trying to show compassion for the plight of us struggling taxpayers, it is downright diabolical how they can do so without a shred of embarrassment over their blatant hypocrisy.

Just how much can lawmakers empathize with the rest of us when they are living in a bubble of their own making? Several decades ago, Congress voted themselves a health care package that rivals anyone’s on this planet.

As R.H. Sheldon wrote in Healthcare for U.S. Congress, with no waiting period, the minute that members of Congress are sworn in, they join FEHBP – Federal Employees Health Benefits Program – for immediate coverage, not only for themselves but for their spouses and dependents. No pre-conditions clauses, no denial of coverage for those preconditions. They can choose from a veritable buffet of alternative health care plans each year. They can move seamlessly from one job to another in the federal sector without any interruption of benefits. And – they get to keep their plans even after they retire.

And most of it is at taxpayer expense. It’s not so much that we don’t already know this; it’s the extent and the details that add up to an abomination of riches, 75 percent of which is paid for by the very taxpayers who can’t afford their own health insurance.

That’s not all. John Barry of the St. Petersburg Times informs us that, for an extra fee plus $2 million from taxpayers each year, they have their own pharmacy right in the Capitol. Doctors, technicians and nurses are on standby for emergencies. And they can get a physical, X-ray or EKG without leaving work. Stop for a minute and imagine your life with this built-in safety net and convenience.

To the credit of Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn, as well as a few other members in the House, they have actually offered up amendments requiring members of Congress to forgo their current health care coverage and enroll in only the government plan they pass. They were all voted down. Reread that last sentence and ask yourself why.

How can we let them get away with offering up a public option when written into their proposals is their own exclusion from having to use what they say will be so terrific for us?

Because they know what is going on behind the scenes and they want nothing to do with it.

In August, the L.A. Times reported – and the White House confirmed – that it promised the pharmaceutical companies that any healthcare legislation will bar the government’s huge purchasing power from negotiating lower drug prices.

Billy Tauzin, president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, openly admitted that he cut a deal with the White House in June, offering to help cover the uninsured and reduce drug prices for some senior citizens, in exchange for the White House promising to block any congressional efforts to allow the government to negotiate Medicare drug prices. The NY Times also got White House confirmation on the veracity of this story.

Did you fully digest that last paragraph? Reread it if you still harbor fantasies that any healthcare overhaul has your best interests in mind.

You think all of this is pretty disgusting? Wait, it gets worse. Much worse. Medicare is prohibited from negotiating with pharmaceuticals for lower prices, yet the FEHBP is permitted to negotiate their premiums and prices. In other words, Congress can get more affordable drugs, but we can’t.

Someone perfectly described the mentality in Congress by declaring that if they’ve proven nothing else, they know how to take care of themselves.

Wisconsin Representative Steve Kogen has refused to accept any federal health insurance coverage. He recently had knee surgery and wrote $4500 in personal checks after bargaining for a reduced-rate MRI and a 50 percent discount on the operation.

We should balk at current attempts to overhaul healthcare without Congress being thrown into this with the rest of us. They should have to deal with the laws they enact and suffer the same unintended consequences of their actions as we will have to do.

Representative Kogen cut to the core of this healthcare debate when he said the following:

“If every member of Congress put their heads on their pillow every night like I do . . knowing this could be the night I lose my house, we’d fix healthcare in a week.”

Jill Chapin

Jill Chapin has been a guest writer and columnist in several Los Angeles area papers for over fifteen years. She has written a bilingual parenting book titled, "If You Have Kids, Then Be a Parent!" and a children's book entitled, "My Magic Bubble."

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