Unexpected consequences

Almost everyone who thinks about healthcare knows that members of congress have great insurance. This leads to frequent calls to end that insurance and make congress go out and get their own insurance so they have some idea of what the rest of us go through. I've had that thought. However, sending them out into the marketplace would be a feelgood measure that would backfire in a big way. Would they really have to go out into the marketplace and shop for insurance? Of course not! Insurance companies would beat a path to their doors and fight over who could offer the best coverage for the lowest price. It would amount to a legalized way for the insurance industry to bribe congress. And once they had these dream plans, do we really think they'd have to go through the same red tape that we do? What insurance company is going to deny coverage to a Senator who sits on a committee that exercises oversight on their industry? The end result of throwing congress off of civil service insurance would most likely be to give them an even more skewed idea of what the rest of us experience than they have now.