You've been wondering, I'm sure, exactly how unfair our healthcare system has become. Very, very unfair is the answer.
This reality takes on a new urgency as John McCain goes around the country promoting a bogus "healthcare plan" for the American people. A "plan" that would exclude him with his pre-existing conditions, if he were not a U.S. Senator, and a recipient of heavily taxpayer subsidized government healthcare.
And since the media refuses to ask the maverick about his own healthcare benefits, which he wants to deny to you and me, I decided to do some research--to get a handle on exactly what people like John and Cindy McCain receive.
Locating information about their Cadillac Healthcare isn't easy. It's buried deep in vaults inside the office of OPM which essentially acts as the HR department for the federal government.
But I've been able to piece together the disgusting reality.
After OPM, you go is the web site of the Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan (FEHBP).
As many of you know, the FEHBP is the benefit program for the federal workforce which includes members of Congress and our illustrious Senators. Federal employees are entitled to their benefits. This diary is not about federal employees, it's about elected officials and high ranking political apointees.
Here's the information they'd rather us not know about.
As our premiums skyrocket, their premiums are stable!
As our benefits are whittled to the point where most of us have bare bones junk insurance (insurance in name only), as our co-pays increase year-after-year, their benefits are expanded. I kid you not.
Here's the statement of NANCY H. KICHAK ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR FOR STRATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCES POLICY AND CHIEF ACTUARY OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT before the SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE, AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS UNITED STATES SENATE
Growth Trends in Health Care Premiums for Active and Retired Federal Employees
OPM administers the FEHB Program, which covers approximately 8 million Federal employees, retirees, and their dependents. The FEHB offers competitive health benefits products for Federal workers, much like other large employer purchasers, by contracting with private sector health plans.
For five consecutive years, rate increases in the FEHB Program have declined. In fact, for 2007, rates increased only 1.8 percent. The result - approximately 63 percent of FEHB enrollees incurred no premium increase, while another 15 percent saw increases of less than 5 percent. For the past five years, the rate increases were lower than industry averages with the last three years being remarkably lower.
http://www.opm.gov/...
Here's more from an OPM press release. Please note that OPM is always seeking to expand FEHBP benefits. This is in stark contrast to almost non-existent benefits the American people must contend with, and our sharply escalating premiums and co-pays.
They take really, really good care of themselves
OPM Holds Average FEHB Premium Increase to about Two Percent for Second Year
Washington, D.C. -- The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) today announced health insurance premiums in the 2008 Federal Benefits Open Season that reflect an average two percent increase for the second year; premium increases for enrollees vary by plan, within a range of -47 percent to 132 percent. OPM also announced the renaming of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Open Season to the Federal Benefits Open Season to reflect the broadened scope of benefits available, including the Federal Employees Dental and Vision Insurance Program (FEDVIP) and Federal Flexible Spending Account Program (FSAFEDS). The FEHBP features 283 plan choices in 2008, one less than in 2007.
. . ."OPM works aggressively with health insurance plans to hold down premium costs for Federal employees, retirees and dependents, while at the same time negotiating expanded coverages," said Linda M. Springer, Director of OPM. "For example, at the prompting of OPM in its Call Letter to health plans, some plans are adding hearing benefits for children up to age 22. And, in response to OPM's emphasis on preventive-care services, many plans are providing benefits in accordance with the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force guidelines, while others have enhanced their preventive-care benefits for 2008."
http://fehb.opm.gov/...
So while Congress is assured of expanded healthcare coverage at a nominal cost, the American people are dropping their coverage at an alarming rate due to unaffordable premiums and continually shrinking benefits.
What follows are the alarming statistics about us. Compare our reality to the reality of Members of Congress. Lowered costs and expanded benefits for them. Dramatically higher costs and dramatically shrinking benefits for us.
In 2007, employer health insurance premiums increased by 6.1 percent - two times the rate of inflation. The annual premium for an employer health plan covering a family of four averaged nearly $12,100. The annual premium for single coverage averaged over $4,400.
- Premiums for employer-based health insurance rose by 6.1 percent in 2007. Small employers saw their premiums, on average, increase 5.5 percent. Firms with less than 24 workers, experienced an increase of 6.8 percent.
- The annual premium that a health insurer charges an employer for a health plan covering a family of four averaged $12,100 in 2007. Workers contributed nearly $3,300, or 10 percent more than they did in 2006.
- The annual premiums for family coverage significantly eclipsed the gross earnings for a full-time, minimum-wage worker ($10,712).
- Workers are now paying $1,400 more in premiums annually for family coverage than they did in 2000.2
- Since 2000, employment-based health insurance premiums have increased 100 percent, compared to cumulative inflation of 24 percent and cumulative wage growth of 21 percent during the same period.
- Health insurance expenses are the fastest growing cost component for employers. Unless something changes dramatically, health insurance costs will overtake profits by 2008.
- According to the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust, premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance in the United States have been rising four times faster on average than workers’ earnings since 2000.2
- The average employee contribution to company-provided health insurance has increased more than 143 percent since 2000. Average out-of-pocket costs for deductibles, co-payments for medications, and co-insurance for physician and hospital visits rose 115 percent during the same period.
- The percentage of Americans under age 65 whose family-level, out-of-pocket spending for health care, including health insurance, that exceeds $2,000 a year, rose from 37.3 percent in 1996 to 43.1 percent in 2003 - a 16 percent increase.
http://www.nchc.org/...
Just to make you really appalled, let's end with this. Here's how Don Sloan, M.D., described Congressional health benefits.
There is an employee/insurance deal in the U.S. that includes unlimited doctor office visits of your choosing; covers all accidents, routine exams, physical therapy, labs and X-rays; and the like; unlimited hospital visits and stays; certain chronic care and rehab; full prescription coverage; and unlimited specialty consultations. For the employee and the entire family. There are no deductibles, no co-pays, and only a $35 monthly fee taken from an annual salary of $158 thou. Thirty-five dollars!
The group awarded this insurance looks forward to a full pension and continued coverage until their deaths. Quite a few, most in fact, were millionaires before they took on their jobs that got them such a perk. Who gets this coverage? It would be nice if it were the underprivileged or the chronically ill and debilitated or our veterans.
But no. For starters, the 535 members of the U.S. Congress, and add to that the few hundred in the upper executive and judicial branches of government. They are also members of a demographic group where seven were arrested for shoplifting, nineteen for writing bad checks, and eighty-four for drunk driving. This bunch also has an overrepresentation of felony indictments, and a few ended up serving time.
http://www.alternet.org/...
If all this makes you ill, you can call your member of Congress or Senator and let them know. Here's a link to the Congressional switchboard.
Mad as hell? Rally against AHIP - June 19 - San Francisco