Health Care Like Your Congressman's

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=2588181&page=1

Allen and his wife are two of the roughly 8 million federal employees and their families, from postal workers to the president, who are covered by insurance that is flexible, affordable and transportable from government job to government job.

The plan is so good that some, including Allen, believe it should be expanded. "We can make the federal system a model for how we deal with the small-business community," Allen said. Among its advantages is the competition it creates between providers, which results in lower costs. The federal plan is made up of more than 280 health plans available to federal workers across the country. In New York alone, a federal employee can choose from among 18 plans.

Advocates said that competition keeps costs low: While the price of private insurance premiums is expected to rise 7.7 percent this year, the federal plan will go up just 1.8 percent.

"It can show you what choice can do, what choice actually means, what intense competition and cost control can result in," said Robert Moffit of the Heritage Foundation policy institute.

and I don't even mean the largest part of their current or future incomes, just what they're paid on salary. Of course, not everybody is as skilled and productive as Congressmen (wink).

Nevermind that. I just wondered to myself how much money it would take for everyone who works to make a decent income. No doubt there are many flaws in my quick guestimate, but here it is anyway: 300 million Americans, say half are adults, so that's 150 million (I just found an estimate of the U.S. labor force stating that there were 145 million jobs out there, so maybe 150 would be okay as a guess), multiply by, say, $50K... and you get a whopping $7.5 Trillion!

Estimates of the U.S. GNP range around 13,500 Billion (2000fy dollars), so over half of it would need to be paid out in wages--and that'd be assuming nobody made more than $50K. Well, in a better world...

No measly Social Security for them.

Not a single payer system (which could be the most efficient) but if everyone in the country can pick one of the plans offered that the government offers its congresscritters and employees... then that's a start. I think someone called John Kerry had that idea too... though I'm not too sure.

Mark.

Didn't see your post before I posted mine. If it works fine, great. If it's still too expensive, at least everybody would be used to government involved in health insurance and it would be a lot easier to go to Medicare For All, Ted Kennedy's plan.

Open up the federal plan to everybody and subsidize it for low income people. It was criticized by the left because it wasn't single payer.