To amend title 5, United States Code, to establish a national health program administered by the Office of Personnel Management to offer Federal employee health benefits plans to individuals who are not Federal employees, and for other purposes.

This is a step in the right direction, anyhow.

If Barry had any sense, he'd sigh on to this one and let it fly.

to see the details. I have the impression that federal employees have a cadillac plan that may not be affordable to the commoner.

Except that the "commoners" are their superiors and they would do well to come up with something at least as good if not better than their own plan.

for everyone. However, I am assuming that the federal employees make a much better wage than a lot of private sector folks. Good plans cost money, and the federal employees are effectively being subsidized by tax dollars if their insurance is part of a group plan.

How would a group plan work for those that are not government employees? In other words, what employer would be paying the lion's share of the premiums, which is the case with many private sector group plans offered by employers?

However, your idea that taxpayers should have as good a plan as federal employees has merit. The rub comes in with the financing of such a plan.

Well, if these head peckers (very descriptive of these liberals, I must say) Pelosi, Reid, and 0bama are setting into law that we can't opt out and are forced to get their mandated insurance, they should have the same "benefits"as we do.

They need a dose of their own medicine. They have the advantage of some very lucrative retirement benefits that the average taxpayer doesn't have so even if they had to come down to our level they wouldn't feel the pinch like so many of us do.

This has been the month of many doctor visits and lab services for me and my wife, and the bills are starting to come in. It is hard to plan things for the holidays with outstanding bills that we don't know the amount of. An occasional copay we can handle no sweat but when they pile up like they have it really takes the fun out of life for a while.

Perhaps this is asking for too much, but a faster turnaround on the charges would be nice so we could plan our expenditures better. Our Medigap policy, which is BC/BS, is fairly prompt, as I got a claims statement yesterday from them for services done on 9/28/09. There is no telling when the Medicare crowd will send me a statement, and the VA is even slower, something on the order of 6 months to receive a claim from them.