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Monday, October 06, 2008

Health care plans

One of the big issues facing Americans is how to deal with health care. The candidates have two different approaches. Here is one explanation of them: McClatchy Report.

What McCain says constantly is that he won't raise taxes. Palin went so far, in her debate, to say he'd hand every American family $5000. She didn't explain the plan because she probably couldn't. McCain's proposal might and/or would end corporations paying for their employees health care. How long before the rest of the benefit package is also taxed?

If you think about this from a corporation viewpoint, they don't want to give benefits; but they have had to do so to be competitive. If that ceases to be a problem, if you end up being charged as if you received income for your health package, why won't this end up taxing your life insurance, extended disability, and dental insurance benefits? How long before these packages become too expensive for many families to be able to afford accepting them. Perfecto from a viewpoint where the bottom line is in an account sheet.

Joe Biden, in the debate, did explain this giving with one hand $5000 a year for health insurance to go straight to the companies while taking with the other hand what might have been a $12,000 benefit package that you either no longer get or now pay full tax rate on its value.

Here is Bob Herbert's explanation for how this will work: McCain's Radical Agenda.

This is not new thinking to tax benefits. It's been creeping in. When my husband got a job with a big corporation, he had his moving costs paid. Very nice. A few years later when newer employees got the same deal, they were in shock when it was accompanied by a tax bill on the $20,000 it had cost.

Some years back corporations were required to figure out what all of these employee benefits were worth and notify the employees. Do you think that was done just for fun? Likely the plan to tax them all has been out there for a long time. This will actually enable many corporations to reduce or take away benefits which benefits who again?

Most (if not all) of the people who do not favor universal health insurance already have it. Here is what Obama says about his proposals for health care. Health care in this country won't be easy to fix and he's not claiming it will. As it stands, a major health problem can totally destroy many families economically. Leaving the problem alone isn't working. Fixing it won't be easy for anybody. Something does have to be done. I know we will hear the right screaming socialism (as they did and still do about both Social Security and Medicare) when/if it happens.

Health care has become so complex, so expensive that it's not like when I grew up, and little could be done when something went wrong. If you had high blood pressure, you adjusted your eating, exercised, and if that didn't do it, you died. Today there are expensive drugs to lower cholesterol and blood pressure. They can extend quality life, but without any insurance they can also pretty well take a paycheck all by themselves. The alternative is dying or disability (that latter is not cheap either).

When I got pregnant with our first baby, we were living on a student fellowship in Tucson, Arizona. We could arrange to pay an obstetrician to give prenatal exams while there; and when we came to Oregon before the delivery, we found a doctor and package from a hospital to cover the delivery reasonably. It didn't bankrupt our starting out family. Today it would.


7 comments:

Darlene said...

I am pragmatic and realize that it would be impossible to change to health care system into universal coverage overnight. I know it will have to be done in increments, but I wish it weren't so.

sonia a. mascaro said...

Hi Rain,
I am so glad you like the collage! Thank you for your nice words on my blog anniversary!
My kind regards.

Sylvia K said...

It just seems sad to me that we are about the only major country without universal health care. No, it won't happen overnight, but it should have happened a long time ago.

Kay Dennison said...

No quick fixes with health care but I heard today that part of the trillions we're spending in Iraq are for universal health care. I haven't researched it yet but if it's true, I am outraged.

Joy Des Jardins said...

We all know that it will be a process that will take some time...a process that should have taken place a long time ago. But it won't take place at all with out Barack Obama in the White House...he really is our hope for change.

Anonymous said...

So, you want our health care run by the govt. that has done this to our economy??

Rain Trueax said...

I plan to write a blog on our form of government, anonymous, woke up thinking of it this morning because we don't have pure capitalism nor democracy. We cannot vote on everything. Our republicans and democrats just decided to bail out wall street with that $700 billion dollars where we have no idea where it's going. We pay right now $10 billion a month to stay in Iraq (and that's just what they admit). What is breaking this country is people who want things but are unwilling to pay for them. I will write a lot more about this and theocracy, democracy, republic, socialism, fascism, and whether any 'pure' form of government is even possible or has ever existed. It's whirling around in my mind.

A person does worry about the government doing things as we have homeland security and patriot act now that are all about taking away freedoms and not about giving us any security. That's the Republican government. I could write a ton on it coming from a state where the Republican government tried to undo what the people had voted into being-- ie death with dignity with restrictions enough that it wasn't about suicide but about the terminally ill choosing their time and method of dying-- not their disease. If government would interfere on such a personal right, don't worry so much about what Democrats might do. I will be writing more on this though.

I would ask anyone who worried about health care for all, do you dislike medicare too? Would you want the old unable to have a doctor without going bankrupt? And do you have insurance yourself and just think anybody can buy their own even if they can't? It is what we have to consider as a country and blog coming on the fears of the right and the left and our actual form of government (which isn't remotely pure capitalism)>