So Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has been tweeting about his replacement proposal: Let every American participate in the Federal Employee Health Benefits program.
Republican rep. offers an “alternative” to the Affordable Care Act
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So Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has been tweeting about his replacement proposal: Let every American participate in the Federal Employee Health Benefits program.
As some who formerly participated in FEHB, I think this would be a great approach. My coverage was so good that I kept it via COBRA (actually TCC, which is Federal COBRA) as long as I could. During that time (Oct 2011 – Dec 2012), I was paying the full cost oif the coverage and it was about $860 per month for a family. We had a good network, 100% coverage in network with a $300 per person deductible. From what I’ve seen (I have yet to be able to log in to healthcare.gov), the plans offered on the exchanges cost almost double that before tax incentives (which many people will not receive) and have hefty deductibles ($1200+ per person) and copays.
The federal workforce tends to be older and less healthy (mostly desk jobs, the military has a different system) yet is able to leverage their size to get great rates. Allowing other people to participate seems like an easy solution.
Thanks for the insight!
I haven’t been able to log in either but from what I’ve seen on the calculators from Kaiser Health and others my family would get at least some of the tax breaks if we weren’t on our employee’s health insurance.
We’re in no way wealthy and not in the bottom rung either but we’re a good ways above the US median household income of $51,144.
I think the problem with allowing so many different plans is that a company has no way of knowing how many people will actually sign up and add to their pool of insured.
So they could add 5 additional customers or 5000. Until they get a large pool they may not be able to get great rates like the FEHB.
I think letting everyone join the FEHB would be far closer to a single-payer system (which is what I think Obama and others would have much preferred) than what the Affordable Care Act offers.