Terry offers health plan idea

WASHINGTON — Having trouble finding health insurance?

Just sign up for one of the plans available to federal employees and members of Congress.

That would be possible under a proposal Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., plans to unveil today at Bellevue University.

“We all are in agreement that the current system has faults, the way the insurance companies have run it, and we need to fix those,” Terry said.

Health care has become the all-consuming issue in Washington these days and is likely to feature prominently in next year's elections.

Federal employees, and members of Congress, are able to pick from a portfolio of plans run by various private health insurance companies. Terry's proposal would open that system to the millions of Americans who are uninsured.

Some of the plans available are more expensive than others. Terry says his own family has a higher-end plan that costs about $1,000 a month. In his case, the government pays about 60 percent of that premium.

But he said that a more basic family plan can be had through the federal employee system for about $500 a month.

Terry also said that he's working on legislation to provide government assistance for families with incomes up to twice the federal poverty level. The cost of that proposal is still being calculated.

Those who signed up in the first year would face no penalties or restrictions based on preexisting conditions. Those joining later would be penalized for pre-existing conditions acquired within the previous year.

“This is … the limited government way of providing universal access, universal health care to people,” Terry said.

Jane Kleeb, state director of the group Change That Works Nebraska, said she likes the general concept of opening the federal employee health insurance plan to the public. But she also said that Terry's proposal falls short by not including a public option to drive down costs by providing competition for the private insurance companies.

“The continual problem which we're all facing is that health insurance is becoming unaffordable for not only small businesses but increasingly not affordable for families, even if they're buying it through their employers,” Kleeb said.

A “public option” would not necessarily have to be run by the government, she said. In fact, she said a better approach would be to have it run by nonprofit organizations on a state-by-state basis.

The goal is to give people access to affordable health care, which she described as 10 percent of a family's income, or 5 percent in the case of low-income families.

Fostering competition with a government-run public option is an idea that many Democrats on Capitol Hill favor, but Terry said such competition wouldn't be truly fair. He compared it to having the Super Bowl champion play UNO in football.

“The government's always going to be the 800-pound gorilla,” Terry said.

The prospects for Terry's proposal appear dim. He and other House Republicans complained this week that Democrats have limited their ability to offer amendments.

Terry cited examples of those amendments: his federal employee benefits proposal, a requirement that members of Congress participate in any public option and protection for hospitals from being forced to provide abortion services.

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