Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Congressman, let's compare doughnut holes

By FRANK KAISER
Published February 28, 2006

I called my congressman's office today. I wanted to learn how he's coping with his congressional drug plan.

You see, if I sign with the new Medicare drug plan, my doughnut hole amount the amount from where there's absolutely zero drug coverage is $3,600 out of pocket.

I wanted to know the size of my congressman's doughnut hole.

My representative, Mike Bilirakis R, Fla., vice-chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, was key to getting Medicare Plan D passed. His committee is the funnel through which all such bills must travel.

I also wanted to find out, from Mike, how many drug plans he has to choose from. I figured he might have expert advice for constituents like me, baffled by the more than 40 providers in Florida.

Plus, I wanted to ask how often congressional insurance providers change their drug formularies. Under Plan D, they change more often than gas pump prices in a Mideast crisis. I wondered, too, if Mike had to pay out of pocket, as we do, for drugs he needs that aren't supported by his plan.

But, when I called, Shirley in his office asked sternly, "Why do you want to know?"

I explained that just maybe Mike had a simpler, cheaper plan than that available to me, and I wondered how it worked.

Well, I've never been told so nicely that it is none of my damn business.

Turns out that folks in Congress get health coverage through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, considered a model by even fiscal conservatives. In 2000, a congressman and his family paid about $160 a month for complete coverage, the low price thanks to a huge subsidy ironically dubbed "Fair Share."

Congress also has three state-of-the-art attending physicians facilities in Washington, D.C. And superb outpatient/inpatient care at the unofficial congressional wings of the famed Walter Reed Army Hospital and Bethesda Naval Hospital.

Nice plan, indeed, and no doughnut hole.

But Congress is different from you and me, with its House and Senate gymnasiums, barbershops and beauty salons, subsidized life insurance, and a pension benefit two to three times more generous than what an executive with a similar salary could expect to receive upon retiring from the private sector. (Congressman Mike could get about $85,000 a year, plus cost-of-living allowances, when he retires. All this, plus $165,000 a year with automatic annual raises.)

What's wrong with this picture?

Founding father James Madison wrote, "[I]t is essential to liberty that the government in general should have a common interest with the people, so it is particularly essential that [Congress] should have an immediate dependence on, and an intimate sympathy with, the people."

With the average American earning about $35,000, Madison must be spinning at the idea of congressional salaries in the top 5 percent. And these guys and girls don't even fill out their own tax returns. The IRS does it for them.

How can we expect Plan D to reflect reality when our representatives in Washington have no stake in it themselves?

So here's my modest proposal: Let all present and former government officials receive their health care under the same program as the rest of us.

It doesn't matter what you call it. The "Comparable Rights for All People" Act of 2006, for all I care. Main thing: Do it!

If we get doughnut holes, they get doughnut holes. It's that simple, that fair.

I would call my congressman for his opinion about this, but, frankly, I get the feeling that his office doesn't want to know what I think. It may just take an act of Congress to change his mind.

Frank Kaiser is a nationally syndicated columnist who lives in Clearwater. His Web site, www.suddenlysenior.com includes nostalgia, trivia, senior humor and 111 Best Senior Links. Write Frank c/o Seniority, the St. Petersburg Times, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731, or e-mail features@sptimes.com.

[Last modified February 28, 2006, 12:24:25]