Let Congress Go Without Insurance
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
NYT
Let me offer a modest proposal: If Congress fails to pass comprehensive health reform this year, its members should surrender health insurance in proportion with the American population that is uninsured.
It may be that the lulling effect of having very fine health insurance leaves members of Congress insensitive to the dysfunction of our existing insurance system. So what better way to attune our leaders to the needs of their constituents than to put them in the same position?
About 15 percent of Americans have no health insurance, according to the Census Bureau. Another 8 percent are underinsured, according to the Commonwealth Fund, a health policy research group. So I propose that if health reform fails this year, 15 percent of members of Congress, along with their families, randomly lose all health insurance and another 8 percent receive inadequate coverage.
Congressional critics of President Obama’s efforts to achieve health reform worry that universal coverage will be expensive, while their priority is to curb social spending. So here’s their chance to save government dollars in keeping with their own priorities.
(More here.)
NYT
Let me offer a modest proposal: If Congress fails to pass comprehensive health reform this year, its members should surrender health insurance in proportion with the American population that is uninsured.
It may be that the lulling effect of having very fine health insurance leaves members of Congress insensitive to the dysfunction of our existing insurance system. So what better way to attune our leaders to the needs of their constituents than to put them in the same position?
About 15 percent of Americans have no health insurance, according to the Census Bureau. Another 8 percent are underinsured, according to the Commonwealth Fund, a health policy research group. So I propose that if health reform fails this year, 15 percent of members of Congress, along with their families, randomly lose all health insurance and another 8 percent receive inadequate coverage.
Congressional critics of President Obama’s efforts to achieve health reform worry that universal coverage will be expensive, while their priority is to curb social spending. So here’s their chance to save government dollars in keeping with their own priorities.
(More here.)
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1 Comments:
In some ways, isn’t this part of the ongoing discussion ?
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) sponsored an amendment that passed in the Senate Health Committee requiring members of Congress to forgo their current health coverage and enroll in any government plan they pass to compete with private insurers. A similar measure was defeated in the House.
That said, it would be a symbolic but meaningless gesture.
They can already do it voluntarily as Wisconsin Democratic Congressman Steve Kagan, who also happens to be a physician, currently declines participation.
Former Senator Rudy Boschwitz claims that he never participated in this benefit … and claims that even today, he does not participate in Medicare.
How does Boschwitz do it … easy, his company (which he owns) provides his health care (then and now). Wouldn’t so many of these current members of Congress who retain some involvement with their business life, just do the same thing ?
Hitting the members of Congress may have little affect ... now, if that is extended to their staffs, that could open some eyes.
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