Mr. Enthoven's reform models were the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, created in 1959, and Calpers, the California health-insurance program for public employees.

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Of course, the Supreme Court justices have lifetime appointments that include access to the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, one of the largest insurance pools in the country, which ensures the jurists aren't subject to the sorts of limits for pre-existing conditions and inflated premiums that most insured Americans have long faced.

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Putting all federal employees on the exchanges would obliterate the most market-oriented insurance program run by the government, the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program, or FEHBP.

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