A little background, Rep. Joe Walsh is the newly elected Republican representative of my district, IL-08. As many of you know, he has refused to accept federal health insurance for himself and his wife, preferring to purchase a plan through private insurance on the open market. His wife has a pre-existing condition which makes it unlikely he will find a plan he can afford, without special favors.
Rep. Walsh feels that not taking health insurance is the will of his constituents. Below the fold is the letter I wrote to tell him otherwise.
Rep. Walsh,
I read this morning your press release stating your refusal to accept federal health insurance and I wanted to offer you some feedback from myself, one of your constituents. While I applaud your principals, I feel you may be missing the point. We, the people of Illinois’ 8th district, hired you to do a job. That job is to represent us in Washington. As compensation for the work you will do for us, we offer wages and benefits. This is not a handout to feel guilty about, unless you don’t actually plan on doing the work we hired you to do.
I am a bit puzzled. Do you not plan on working hard enough to earn your health insurance benefits? If so, perhaps you made a mistake in asking for the job. Or instead, do you feel the benefits package is far too generous for the work you can perform? If so, as I said, you miss the point. We do not offer you federal health insurance simply to lavish you or to throw our money away. We hired you to work for us, and to focus 100% on that work. Every minute that you spend trying to browbeat a for-profit company into insuring your wife at a loss is a minute you’re not doing the job we pay you to do.
Do not misunderstand for a second, that is precisely the case. The insurance industry exists for only one reason, to make money. They do not exist to do you any favors and they do not exist to cover your wife at a loss. And her pre-existing condition virtually guarantees that any company that offers you a policy will take a loss on it.
The hard truth is, you probably will be offered a policy that would never be offered to any of us. Every company will be tripping over themselves to offer a Congressman a top notch policy at an amazing price. But never forget that it will be a bribe, and they will expect payback. And taking bribes is not what we are paying you to do.
So I offer a challenge, if you will accept it. Simply put, send your wife out as an average American citizen to buy her own policy. Do not tell any company who you are or what your rank and power is. Send her out to buy a policy on the merits of only what you can actually pay for it. This will give you the true insight into the market the average American faces, and how insurance companies treat their customers.
In closing, we wish you the best of luck, but we did not send you to Washington to watch your wife’s health suffer for a flawed principal. So if you cannot find an insurance policy for your family that you can afford without quid pro quo, then I ask that you do accept your federal health insurance so that you can focus on the work we hired you to do.
Your employer,
(Norm)