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.

Obama speaking on his health care ideas.