It’s Time to Take a Closer Look at Insurance Exchanges
Aside from the public option, the Democrats’ effort to control insurance costs for individuals and small businesses focuses on insurance exchanges that would offer them a wide range of health plans (possibly including a public plan) and would pool participants to get group insurance rates. These exchanges, featured in the House and Senate reform bills, superficially resemble the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program. However, because federal employees—as well as members of Congress—must use the FEHBP if they want the government to help pay for their coverage, the federal employee program is actually quite different from what is proposed in the reform measures. Those proposals contemplate something that’s more like the small business health insurance purchasing cooperatives of the 1990s—most of…
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