While President Elect Obama argues on behalf of mortgage bailouts for people who borrowed more than they should have, arguing, rightly, that if your neighbor's house is on fire, even if it was caused by negligence you put the fire out to save your own house, it looks like so far he's ignoring his promises regarding health insurance and health care.
Last week, civilian federal government employers were in an uproar because of changes to their coverage. The Office of Personnel Management was arguing with employees about changing the election period in order to give insurance companies an opportunity to "fix" the problem.
Miraculously, on Saturday, washingtonpost.com reported in an article by Joe Davidson that the 269 insurance providers trying to get a piece of the mammoth civilian governmental health insurance pie, are now being asked to RESUBMIT offers of coverage.
Amazing how suddenly our leaden government is able to act on its own behalf and receive congratulations from itself as Colleen M. Kelley, a union rep commented that the Office of Personnel Management should "be commended for their outstanding advocacy on behalf of federal employees, retirees and their families."
President Elect Obama has never mentioned the unbelievable disconnect in what is available to the common citizenry and what is available to civilian governmental employees except for a specific promise to make available to US citizens what is available to federal employees. With the less controversial save our earth, save our energy, save our houses issues looming, it will be a tremendous loss if he puts off or fails to address this campaign promise.
We all pay more to accommodate the good deals given to some who work for governments. Insurance companies make their money back by charging more to the individual left scurrying for insurance benefits. We cannot make progress until our government employees are left alone to make their best deal, like the rest of us.
In the meantime, civil service people are living in the same fantasy land of disconnected experience as the rest of us, job security, benefits, and retiree benefits for which they use our government time and personnel to argue for on their behalf.
