The vast majority of Americans who are fortunate enough to have health care get it through their employer. Federal employees and retirees, millions of them, are covered by the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP). This plan covers the person who sells you stamps at the post office, our astronauts, the folks that work at the local Social Security office and, yes, members of Congress.
FEHBP offers over 400 competing private plans to these federal workers, and that will not change for members of Congress, any more than it will change for the person who sells you stamps, any more than the choice of plans that now covers most Americans through their employers will change.
What will change is that those not covered by any plan at all will be able to obtain affordable coverage. What will change is that those who lose their jobs due to hard times will still be able to afford coverage (COBRA is very expensive when you don't have a paycheck). What will change is that owners of small businesses that now offer insurance to their employees will no longer worry that their coverage will be dropped for everyone who works there if one employee contracts a dreaded disease that the insurance company would rather not pay for. This happens all too frequently now.
See www.heritage.org/research/healthcare/bg1123.cfm for some accurate information about this. The Heritage Foundation, which wrote this, is a well-known conservative think tank.
Good luck, and I hope that you don't find your own insurance dropped arbitrarily as so many have.
Bill Jefferys
Fayston
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