President Obama,

During the campaign you made a lot of promises concerning your Healthcare Reform plans and gave false hope to millions of Americans who ended up voting for you. While on the campaign stump, you guaranteed those of us who already have health insurance that nothing would change except that our premiums would be less expensive. You promised that Americans would still be able to choose their doctor and that we’d continue to get excellent healthcare.  

If you already have insurance, the only thing that will change under my plan is that we will lower premiums. If you don't have health insurance, you'll be able to get the same kind of health insurance Members of Congress get for themselves.

--Barack Obama, "Closing Argument" speech, Canton, Ohio, October 26, 2008

You  said  that you wanted to give us the same kind of health insurance that members of Congress and their families get.  However, you were just blowing smoke from one end of the country to the other. The “Public Option” and other parts of the Healthcare Plan  are NOT the same plan as the one your family and Congressional families enjoy.  Your plan is the deluxe model and everyday Americans would have the basic model.

If your plan is so good for American, will you and every House of Representative and Senator give up your Health Insurance and take the Public Option for you and your families?  If it’s good enough for the rest of Americans, shouldn’t it be good enough for our government officials?

According to Stuart M. Butler, Ph.D. and Nina Owcha, your legislation should include the following important elements:

·         “Use the consumer-choice system available to Members of Congress as a true model, not as a façade for government-run health care. The system you and other federal employees have enjoyed, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), is not like Medicare or Medicaid. It is an employment-based system with important characteristics. Its "health insurance exchange" functions like a shopping mall for plans, making it easy for families to shop each year for plans and to have portable coverage. Plans range from managed care to health savings accounts. There is no standard, congressionally mandated benefits package, and there is no national health board, so Members of Congress can choose the benefits that are right for them.

The FEHBP consists of truly competing private plans, with no "public plan" enjoying a sweetheart deal. And it has private options available throughout the nation that even the sickest employees can afford. You are to be applauded for citing this as a model of choice and competition, but you must make sure that Congress does not play bait-and-switch, talking about the FEHBP but enacting something quite different.

·         Create a level playing field of competing private plans and real choice, and do not allow a "public plan" to undermine your other commitments to Americans. You spoke of including a government-sponsored "public plan" as one of the competing plans in your proposed health exchange, but there is no public plan in the FEHBP--and for good reason. There can be little doubt that if the government sets the rules for competition in an exchange and also runs one of the plans, the rules will be rigged to favor the public plan.

Moreover, employers who currently offer coverage could switch their workers to this plan, and millions of Americans would discover that their employers had ended their existing private coverage. That would be an unacceptable violation of your "no change" commitment. Indeed, recent estimates from the Lewin Group, a leading health econometrics firm, suggest that more than 22 million Americans would experience an unexpected change in coverage with a public plan in place.”

 So I ask you President Obama and your liberal Congressmen and Senators, will you put your money where you mouth is and subject your families to the "Public Option" Health Insurance instead of your deluxe Healthcare plan?