The Foreign Service Journal, March 2010

M A R C H 2 0 1 0 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 7 The Sky’s Not Falling Regarding AFSA’s objection to the Senate’s proposed excise tax on high- cost health plans (“Priorities and Sur- veys,” January AFSA News Retiree VP column), I wonder if it polled its mem- bership to find a substantial majority against the proposed excise tax. If so, I regret having missed the opportunity to register my own opinion, for I am ap- parently out of sync with my fellow AFSA members. If it did not consult the member- ship, then I find it unacceptable that the AFSAGoverning Board decided to join other unions in putting its narrow, parochial interests ahead of what I re- gard as the greater national goal of ex- tending health coverage to all. And believe me, those interests are very narrow. After spending some time on the Office of Personnel Manage- ment Web site (www.opm.gov ), I found that fewer than 1 percent of the nearly 500 available family plans (matching my personal circumstances) would cur- rently be subject to the excise tax. And for the 17 national plans that AFSA members are most likely to find suit- able, the average total premium (gov- ernment plus individual contributions) in 2010 is $5,277 for singles and $11,950 for families. These figures are well below the excise tax thresholds of $8,000 and $21,000 that would go into effect in 2013, if the legislation is passed. Judging by the column in the No- vember 2009 Retiree Newsletter , whose conclusion is reiterated in the January FSJ , AFSA believes the sky is falling. This is based on a faulty assumption that premiums will immediately begin increasing at a projected 8-percent an- nual rate. In fact, the thresholds are ad- justed upward by only 3 percent beginning in 2014. Using the OPM figures, I calculate that it will not be until 2019 that the an- nual cost of the average national single plan reaches $8,000, by which time the threshold will have risen to $10,400. And the cost of the average family plan won’t hit $21,000 until 2022, when the threshold will have risen to $29,900. But if those assumptions are sus- tained through 2022, health costs will constitute more than 31 percent of our economy. Do we not believe — do we not consider it an absolute national pri- ority if we are to remain economically competitive— that we must succeed in slowing, if not reversing, the growth of health costs relative to the rest of the economy? Apart from the apparently very shaky factual basis upon which AFSA justifies its opposition to excise taxes, I’m particularly dismayed that it would want to obstruct this very viable way to finance the extension of health care to all Americans — even if it hits a small handful of us in the pocketbook. Many of us have spent the greater part of our careers living in countries where no one goes bankrupt as a result of medical mishaps, some of us in other developed countries where life expectancy is higher than ours and health costs a fraction of ours. If we’re as exceptional a nation as our politi- cians constantly proclaim, then surely we can find some way to provide health care for all at less than $21,000 per family or $8,000 per individual. I would very much like the Govern- ing Board to justify its lobbying objec- tive, both in terms of verifying that it was consistent with member prefer- ence and in terms of factual foundation. This is close to a membership-deciding situation for me. A Journal subscrip- tion is much cheaper than annual dues. Brent Schaeffer FSO, retired Gaborone, Botswana and Hendersonville, N.C. Better Times for Public Affairs I thought that Alexis Ludwig’s De- cember SpeakingOut column, “Restore State’s Office of Public Communica- tions,” was spot on. It certainly brought backmemories of better times for pub- lic affairs: Upon returning from an overseas assignment back in the 1970s and 1980s, one could contact the Bu- reau of Public Affairs and volunteer for speaking engagements and interviews with the media. Because Seattle was my home leave address, I volunteered for venues in Washington, Idaho andOregon. Wheth- er it was a Kiwanis dinner, a radio call-in show or a newspaper interview, my au- L ETTERS