My father is concerned about the health care crisis. He's writing an op-ed about this for his local paper and wants to know what kind of health care benefits Senators and Members of Congress get (for the sake of comparison).
Does anyone know where I can find a explanation of this?
I'm looking for an explanation that is as simple and straightforward as possible.
I searched various .gov sites have a basic idea of some parts of it.
More below the flip.
Brief Background:
My father is 74 and computer literate in a functional-literacy kind of way. His computer is a K-Pro PC from around 1987 and he uses WordPerfect 4.1. He's always been happy with it and never wanted to upgrade; he's a little worried that recently it has started shutting down unexpectedly when it is very cold. He is computer literate enough that he sometimes uses my mother's (good) computer, on which he sends and receives email and occasionally finds things online. For the most part, he avoids the internet like the plague.
When my parents were here for Thanksgiving my father told me about this op-ed he's trying to write and how he wants to know what kind of health care benefits Congress gets. He explained how he went online and tried to figure it out. "But they have all these different plans and it's all on different pages. You have to click on this and click on that and then you don't know where the hell you are anymore."
Which is to say my father would prefer a fairly straightforward explanation. He's a smart man, retired professor and all. I'm just saying a clear description of the benefits is what he wants.
My research:
I found the following at the Office of Personnel Management. (If I got any of this wrong, please correct me.)
- Senators and Members of Congress get normal Federal Employees Benefits.
- There are several different plans available (Fee-for-Service, HMOs, etc.) to Federal Employees.
- www.opm.gov and / or the Federal Employees Benefits program was designed by the devil himself.
I also figured out the specific benefits for one of the several plans available (the Consumer Driven Health Plan available through Aetna), but haven't researched the others. Other OPM pages refer to Blue Shield / Blue Cross Insurance, HMOs, and just about everything.
What I need:
Considering the Office of Personnel Management website was designed by Satan, I am now looking for a straightforward article that gives the basic information in normal non-government-website English.
Does anyone know of something helpful?