The Joke is on Congress

Everyone is upset because one or more of the Health Care/Insurance Reform bills exempts Congress, Federal Employees and Union members (like AFL-CIO, etc). It just shows how wrong the whole thing is, but ..... I'm wanting to talk about it for another reason.

The biggest lie being told is that "everyone will get to keep their insurance if they like it". There are several things wrong with that statement, but the main reason this is a lie is because, as time goes by, the pool of insurable people will get smaller as people are forced onto the public option, and eventually the private companies won't be able to compete and still make a profit, and will go out of business. Forcing even more people onto the public plan.

Well, I have been thinking about that and I think that if they do manage to ram a bill through with some form of public option, that the joke will be on Congress and on the union (reg and Fed) members.

Here is why - Congress and Federal Employees have great health insurance. I know, because I'm a Federal Employee. What makes our insurance so sweet is not that we have a great insurance COMPANY in particular, its that we have a choice between several fee-for-service and HMO plans, and they compete with each other to get us to enroll. (USPS workers have it even better than reg Fed employees.)

I don't know much about regular union members' insurance, but I believe they would benefit because the unionized companies would not be penalized by the 8% tax and thus not inclined to drop what they already have.

But think about it: Congress, Federal Emps and union members have insurance with some of the same private insurance companies as regular folks do - Blue Cross, Kaiser, United Healthcare, etc. SO, if these private companies eventually go out of business, who will Congress and the union members get insurance with? Are there enough people in Congress, Federal Agencies and unions combined to make it profitable for private companies to vie for their business? I doubt it.

So, who will they get health insurance from? If what I'm thinking is
correct, then we will ALL eventually be on the public plan, including members of Congress. And the joke will be on THEM.

Oh, and by the way, the people aren't being fooled by the change to "co-ops". We all know that that is just another way to slip in something to get a public option started. Congress needs to stop assuming that we are all too stupid to see through their tricks.