Easy for you to say - health care reform in Congress

Quietly, House and Senate conferees killed a package of minor health care insurance reforms just before Congress adjourned for 1992. The continuing gridlock might be bad news for the 40 million Americans who have no medical insurance. But not for the people most empowered to change the system: Top policy makers in Washington are well covered, thanks in large part to taxpayers.

As First Patient, the president enjoys limitless free medical care from the U.S. military, including treatment by a handpicked civilian physician and visits to the Bethesda Naval Hospital. The president's doctor and attendants also administer to White House executive staffers - on the Pentagon's tab.

On top of this, the First Family is covered by Blue Cross, which pays 100 percent of its private hospital costs and 75 percent of other care and prescription drugs, minus a $250 annual deductible. The vice president and his family enjoy the same coverage.

Members of Congress, their staffs, the president's cabinet and all federal bureaucrats are eligible for coverage under the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program. Adopted in 1960, the program currently offers more than 325 different private insurance plans. More than nine million federal employees, retirees and dependents are enrolled. The government's share of the insurance premiums cost taxpayers more than $2.5 billion during the 1991 fiscal year.

Like most professionals in Washington, lobbyists for the various medical industry groups working to influence reform efforts tend to be well covered. American Medical Association employees, for example, can choose from three different plans, with a "substantial portion" of the premium paid by the association, media director James Stacey says.

Of course, policymakers' enviable medical coverage may play only a minor role in Congress's failure to fast-track health care reform. The biggest culprits are the medical industry's effective lobbying and millions of dollars in campaign contributions, the issue's complexity and the lack of consensus on what type of reform should be adopted.

But there is a personal element. Henry Simmons, president of the National Leadership Coalition for Health Care Reform in Washington, believes many political leaders still don't fully appreciate the depth of the nation's health care crisis.

Generally, people "who have good coverage think the whole world does," Simmons says.

COPYRIGHT 1992 Common Cause Magazine
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group