Can simplest solution preserve Obamacare’s best features?
A new group of refugees is now fleeing the tumult of their villages and cities back home, seeking security and protective comfort in their chosen American sanctuary city — Washington, D.C.
These are not your ordinary refugees — they are Republican senators and representatives in the U.S. Congress. They have just used their Presidents Week congressional recess to convene their first town hall meet-and-greets of the Trump presidential era.
They were ambushed by overflow crowds of angry voters. A significant part of that anger was politically arranged by progressive activists who succeeded in doing to conservative Republicans what tea party activists did to Democrats and moderate Republicans back in 2010.
But the largest contributing factor to the voter anger directed at Republican senators and representatives didn’t require sly scheming — because it is very real, even frightening to many voters. They are frightened about what will happen when Republicans succeed in repealing President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. Republicans haven’t shown voters how they will replace it or sufficiently addressed what its elimination might mean to middle class folks who voted for Trump.
That has always made the most sense to me came from the late Michael Bromberg, Washington’s premier health care industry lobbyist. As Washington kept devising all sorts of massive health care plans, Mike kept insisting all major objectives could be achieved with the simplest idea:
Just take the best health insurance available to the senators, representatives and everyone who works for the federal government and make it available to everyone in America.
The Federal Employees Health Benefits, or FEHB, Program basically allows all of Washington’s elites to enroll in any plan they choose — at favorable rates.
What about those who cannot afford to pay for coverage? Mike always said provisions must be enacted to assure that the poor will have subsidized coverage. The near-poor and lower middle classes would receive supplemental aid on a sliding needbased scale. But the beauty of this plan is that it can be done without massively restructuring. So that’s where it merits bipartisan backing.
When the ACA was enacted, it required all legislative branch employees to purchase coverage through the ACA networks in their states or Washington, D.C. So your senators and reps can’t buy into FEHB anymore. But all executive and judicial branch employees still get their coverage through FEHB. As the U.S. Office of Personnel Management website proclaims: “Federal employees, retirees and their survivors enjoy the widest selection of health plans in the country.”
That still sounds like a great place to start.