History
The program was created in 1960. Employer sponsorship of health insurance in the United States became prevalent during World War II, as one of the few ways by which employers could escape wage and price control limitations on employee wages. The government originally proposed a system that would revolve around a dominant government-directed plan, but unions and employee associations, which had sponsored their own plans, protested. Reflecting the political pressure thus created, the Congress modified the Executive Branch proposal and all existing plans were "grandfathered" into the program. Thus, through what was essentially a historical accident and a political compromise, a system of competition among health plans driven by consumer choices was created.
Read more about this topic: Federal Employees Health Benefits Program
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“In front of these sinister facts, the first lesson of history is the good of evil. Good is a good doctor, but Bad is sometimes a better.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact which no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces which no epoch of former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman empire. In our days everything seems pregnant with its contrary.”
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“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)