I propose that any politician...

[nehalem256]

It is compensated as such. That is the exact reason that they don't need an additional benefit like free healtcare on top of their $162,000 salary.

The masses are all expected to pay for their healtcare by a very vocal group of these people while they refuse to do the same.

1.) I did not realize that no employers offered health insurance as a benefit

2.) It seems like the end result of your plans is to insure that only the rich can serve in Congress.

 

[MooseNSquirrel]

Considering the average net worth of members of Congress is 9 to 10 times that of the average American....

 

[monovillage]

And I propose that those same politicians should have to work 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year and that fancy dinners and junkets to play golf at country clubs do not in any way count as "work".

Campaigning for re-election and attending fund raisers do not count as work either. Your job is to help create legislation to better society and not to suck at the tits of the rich that you will have to become subserveant to so that you can do the same thing a year and a half later.

You can do that on your own time, Congressman/Senator.

You left out "President" since he's the biggest fucking golf whore and campaign fund raising slut and all around corporate douche bag we have in this country.

 

[Ventanni]

I propose that anyone who thinks healthcare can be free work 40 hours- for free.

I consider myself a rational thinker and don't believe for one moment that healthcare can be "free", or otherwise covered by the taxes we pay. Let's be realistic, it wouldn't be free. We'd just all be forced to pay for it. But given that, I do believe healthcare could be cheaper.

Case in point, I was actually rushed to the ER in late May of this year. I had just finished working out pretty hard, and had chugged down a protein shake to recover. I started to get really sick, then threw up the protein shake. I was feeling a tad bit better and decided to drive my friend home, but on the way back I realized I was unfit to drive, and pulled over into a parking lot. The cops found me in a daze, covered in a slimy sweat, and I was taken to the ER in the back of an ambulance. Six hours and 3 IV bags later, I was fine. Weak, but fine. The doc told me I had pushed it a little too hard, and had found elevated levels of muscle breakdown, and that my kidneys were slightly compromised, but nothing fatal. Rest up and drink lots of fluids, and you'll be golden in a week!

I had suffered from heat exhaustion. Yay, go me!

Now, I'm not for a moment unthankful. Had the cops not found me, heat exhaustion left untreated can cause a lot of damage, and even be fatal. But, I was a little taken back by the $5200 bill (3 bills actually: An ambulance, doctor, and ER bill) that arrived in the mail two weeks later. Unfortunately I'm too poor to afford health insurance, but I do pay my taxes and consider myself a good, hard worker.

$5200 for 6 hours and 3 IV bags? I'm incredibly thankful to be alive and/or not have any lasting, permanent damage, but it just seems a little steep. Why should it be that expensive anyways?

On a humorous note, as I was walking out of the ER that morning, I took off the hospital robe in front of the nurses. I had been cracking jokes fairly shortly after I got there, so it wasn't completely out of the blue that I did this. I was still clothed in my gym clothes, so I also wasn't naked by any means, but I held it up and said, "Well ladies, it's official. I don't look too hot in a dress."

They just looked back at me like I was a crazed nutcase, but hey, I thought it was pretty funny.

 

[sportage]

That votes against free, basic healthcare for everyone should automatically have their free, basic healthcare paid for by the people that they are denying the same benefit revoked.

And with it, all of the free clinics (appropriately called the Office of the Attending Physician) that are in federal government buildings that they can just walk into at any time without paying a dime should be closed and their $3M+ annual budget be reallocated to something that can actually show a positive benefit to society and not be used to further support the hypocrisy of a group that says healthcare is something that should be bought by the public while the reap the benefits of having those same people that can't afford to do that, pay for theirs.

Absolutely correct! And a fair solution.
Naturally congress protects their insured rosy behinds. Never your, just theirs.
Wouldn't it be fun to have the power to vote whatever you wanted for yourself?
Want a $500 a week raise? You make the call.
Want affordable healthcare, or better yet government healthcare? All you need do is reply "YEA" when called upon.
Wouldn't it be nice if we lived in a country that wasn't so full of bull....
Everyone played fair and were equal, starting with congress?
And wouldn't it be nice if democrats were elected from now on, and eventually we replaced every and all of these radical republican judges on the US Supreme Court?
Then tossed these radical un-American black-robed republican traitors into the slammer, where they all belong.
Any other civilized country would do no less, especially to a traitor.

 

[cubby1223]

It is compensated as such. That is the exact reason that they don't need an additional benefit like free healtcare on top of their $162,000 salary.

The masses are all expected to pay for their healtcare by a very vocal group of these people while they refuse to do the same.

Congressmen could have a salary of $150k and "free" healthcare, and you still would have written this thread.

Congressmen could have a salary of $180k and healthcare paid out from their salaries, and you would not have created this thread.


Your stance in fundamentally flawed and you know it. So why sit there and persistently pretend to be right? That is the interesting question here.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I consider myself a rational thinker and don't believe for one moment that healthcare can be "free", or otherwise covered by the taxes we pay. Let's be realistic, it wouldn't be free. We'd just all be forced to pay for it. But given that, I do believe healthcare could be cheaper.

Case in point, I was actually rushed to the ER in late May of this year. I had just finished working out pretty hard, and had chugged down a protein shake to recover. I started to get really sick, then threw up the protein shake. I was feeling a tad bit better and decided to drive my friend home, but on the way back I realized I was unfit to drive, and pulled over into a parking lot. The cops found me in a daze, covered in a slimy sweat, and I was taken to the ER in the back of an ambulance. Six hours and 3 IV bags later, I was fine. Weak, but fine. The doc told me I had pushed it a little too hard, and had found elevated levels of muscle breakdown, and that my kidneys were slightly compromised, but nothing fatal. Rest up and drink lots of fluids, and you'll be golden in a week!

I had suffered from heat exhaustion. Yay, go me!

Now, I'm not for a moment unthankful. Had the cops not found me, heat exhaustion left untreated can cause a lot of damage, and even be fatal. But, I was a little taken back by the $5200 bill (3 bills actually: An ambulance, doctor, and ER bill) that arrived in the mail two weeks later. Unfortunately I'm too poor to afford health insurance, but I do pay my taxes and consider myself a good, hard worker.

$5200 for 6 hours and 3 IV bags? I'm incredibly thankful to be alive and/or not have any lasting, permanent damage, but it just seems a little steep. Why should it be that expensive anyways?

On a humorous note, as I was walking out of the ER that morning, I took off the hospital robe in front of the nurses. I had been cracking jokes fairly shortly after I got there, so it wasn't completely out of the blue that I did this. I was still clothed in my gym clothes, so I also wasn't naked by any means, but I held it up and said, "Well ladies, it's official. I don't look too hot in a dress."

They just looked back at me like I was a crazed nutcase, but hey, I thought it was pretty funny.

You didn't get 6 hours and 3 IV bags. You had the time and resources of a small army of people who were highly trained and did the tests to determine what was wrong and what to do. You are telling us the end result, but to get there wasn't just plugging a bag into you. All of that isn't free (which I understand you get) but the infrastructure necessary to make sure you were OK is more complex than you might imagine. Can we make it less expensive? Probably, but what are you willing to give up? What can be done to make the system more efficient? Adding regulations doesn't do that. There needs to be a serious look at what can be done, but I've been over that before. It's a hard task best ignored, or so it seems.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

And wouldn't it be nice if democrats were elected from now on, and eventually we replaced every and all of these radical republican judges on the US Supreme Court?
Then tossed these radical un-American black-robed republican traitors into the slammer, where they all belong.
Any other civilized country would do no less, especially to a traitor.

Joe Stalin, is that you?

 

[Mursilis]

I propose that anyone who works 40 hours a week should get free basic healthcare.

And I propose you provide it. Unless you hate the poor. And minorities.

 

[zsdersw]

Do members of Congress and the POTUS contribute anything from their pay/salary to their health insurance or any sort of pension?

If not, I think they should.

 

[nageov3t]

I support universal healthcare (and would definitely support politicians losing their healthcare benefits when they're out of office just like anyone else who finds themselves unemployed)

but that aside, most logical people would agree that there's a substantiate difference between employer-provided health care (even when said employer happens to be the government) versus free healthcare for all Americans.

 

[cybrsage]

I hereby answer the cry of the OP and remove (retroactively) the free healthcare given to members of Congress.

Members of Congress have good health insurance by any standard, but it’s not free and not reserved only for them – and it’s not government insurance. House and Senate members are allowed to purchase private health insurance offered through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, which covers more than 8 million other federal employees, retirees and their families.

http://www.factcheck.org/2009/08/health-care-for-members-of-congress/

I hope RightisWrong is now happy that I single handedly removed the free heathcare from Congress from this point forward AND going backwards in time (until 1984 at least - I am not omnipotent after all).

 

[cybrsage]

Do members of Congress and the POTUS contribute anything from their pay/salary to their health insurance or any sort of pension?

If not, I think they should.

They pay for their own health insurance (per my previous post) and they pay into Social Security or the retirement plan, depending on when they got their federal job. Basically, since 1984, all federal workers are treated the same. The military is treated differently than the civilian federal branches still.

Prior to 1984, neither Members of Congress nor any other federal civil service employee paid Social Security taxes. Of course, they were also not eligible to receive Social Security benefits. Members of Congress and other federal employees were instead covered by a separate pension plan called the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS). The 1983 amendments to the Social Security Act required federal employees first hired after 1983 to participate in Social Security. These amendments also required all Members of Congress to participate in Social Security as of January 1, 1984, regardless of when they first entered Congress. Because the CSRS was not designed to coordinate with Social Security, Congress directed the development of a new retirement plan for federal workers. The result was the Federal Employees' Retirement System Act of 1986.
Members of Congress receive retirement and health benefits under the same plans available to other federal employees. They become vested after five years of full participation.
Members elected since 1984 are covered by the Federal Employees' Retirement System (FERS). Those elected prior to 1984 were covered by the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS). In 1984 all members were given the option of remaining with CSRS or switching to FERS.
As it is for all other federal employees, congressional retirement is funded through taxes and the participants' contributions. Members of Congress under FERS contribute 1.3 percent of their salary into the FERS retirement plan and pay 6.2 percent of their salary in Social Security taxes.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/uscongress/a/congresspay.htm

 

[zsdersw]

They pay for their own health insurance (per my previous post) and they pay into Social Security or the retirement plan, depending on when they got their federal job.

Great. One of the few things the federal government got right.

 

[cybrsage]

Yep, and I remember when they were debating it in Congress. One of the guys got up and said that anyone who voted against this was proving to America that they felt Congress was better than the common man and should be given special treatment befitting their status as royalty. I am paraphrasing it into what my still in high school mind felt he was saying.