Healthcare made easy

LAT takes a look at the government subsidized health insurance of Congress and other federal employees.

Among the advantages: a choice of 10 healthcare plans that provide access to a national network of doctors, as well as several HMOs that serve each member's home state. By contrast, 85% of private companies offering health coverage provide their employees one type of plan -- take it or leave it.

In all, taxpayers spent about $15 billion last year to insure 8.5 million federal workers and their dependents, including postal service employees, according to the Office of Personnel Management.

Steve Benen adds:

Rep. Steve Kagen, a Wisconsin Democrat who worked as a Green Bay-area physician for decades, is the only member of Congress who refuses to accept federal healthcare benefits, insisting that it's not fair for lawmakers to have a better option that his constituents. Instead, he goes without.

"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," said Kagen.

And Avedon posts one of the best explanations of reform I've seen. Read it all but here's the money quote.

So the mythology that there is a lot of choice that consumers have now is just that, it's mythology. Under single payer plan the way that it would be structured is that you pay a payroll tax, then you choose a doctor, you go to the doctor, and from your payroll taxes, or the taxes you pay in other ways, they reimburse the doctor.That's it.

So simple. If the media was posting explanations like this, instead of promoting GOP talking points, we would have a decent health care system in this country by now.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]