Opening Up the TSP?

We've had a fair number of discussions here about the wisdom or lack thereof as using the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program as a model for a public option in health care reform. Today comes the news, via Education and Labor Committee Chairman Rep. George Miller that there have been discussions (where, he doesn't say) about the viability of opening up the Thrift Savings Plan to Americans looking for a stable investment option:

I don't want to overstate the talk, but yes. That has been raised. You have the same discussion going on [with health care]. If you can't get an adequate plan, President-elect Obama has talked about federal employees' health-care plan being the default plan. I think when you look at the thrift savings plan, it meets a lot of criteria about a low-cost, limited-choice approach for people.

I wrote yesterday that some of the leading healthcare thinkers in the Democratic Party are reconsidering the idea that FEHB is the best model for health care reform. I have no idea if Miller's thoughts on the TSP will go anywhere. But I do think it's intriguing that, in their quest to provide health and retirement security to the rest of America, Democratic lawmakers are opening up discussions about the quality of federal benefits. One hopes that in those discussions, they consider the quality of those benefits for federal employees, too.