Rep. Issa Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif) has proposed an alternative to Obamacare called “Access to Insurance for All Americans Act.” The idea behind the draft act is to give Americans, those who are not Federal employees, access into the Federal Employees Health Benefits program (FEHBP), which provides coverage for members of Congress among others. Issa’s website says the new act would be “simple to implement” as “FEHBP already works for millions of Americans, so adding new participants should be easily managed without requiring new infrastructure.” Issa is also proud that his draft act is only 10-pages “unlike Obamacare which was thousands of pages long.”
[Left: Issa released his book Watchdog: The Real Stories Behind the Headlines from the Congressman Who Exposed Washington’s Biggest Scandals in July 2016]
In 2004, presidential candidate Senator John Kerry (D-Mass) proposed the idea of opening the FEHBP to all Americans. The conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation wrote at the time: “While the FEHBP can be a useful model for reform based on consumer choice and competition, however, there are some serious practical problems with relying on the FEHBP itself, even with separate pooling arrangements. A number of these problems arise from the major differences between the federal workforce and the uninsured population.” Issa will discuss the Access to Insurance for All Americans Act on Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday, February 24 at 10pm on HBO.
