TM7, Had a close friend who worked at Micro$loth back in the good old days when they were king, and they had Starbucks carts all over the place - free coffee 24/7. They had games, puzzles, arcades, food ... all sorts of employee incentives or perks that experts had determined encouraged productivity. It all costs $ too, but in a profit scenario, it's okay. If they had cut expenses though, should they go after employee HC benefits? Or the free cinnabon?
Cutting military HC first, without addressing the billions in frivolity ripe for the cutting, is unconscionable. I'd be in favor of a standard HC system for federal employees, like they standardized the TSP system when they let the military participate. The money saved there would not be in the military costs - in fact, either our care would go up or millions of government workers HC would go down. But public unions prevent that, so they have to go after the sector that cannot unionize by law. Seriously, if you brought the HC benefits of the various agencies as well as congress all down to a common benchmark, and I would be happy if the military would be that benchmark, we'd have enough money to cover all of our employees and retirees comfortably.
Of course my solution to federal HC is holistic - if you reduce the size of government, you reduce the cost of providing them HC. All the CZARs, Depts of Education, Energy, Environmental Protection, DHS, just to name a few - think of the billions saved to taxpayers by closing their doors and not having to cover their HC?
