Ok just a quick word on W’s health plan. The basics: Tax breaks ($7500 for individual and $15,000 for family) purchases of coverage through the employer or as an individual. Not bad. The plan proposes to even the playing field between employer plans, which are tax protected, and individual-open-market coverage for the self-employed, which provide no tax protection. Good.
But here is a question, If you don’t have a job, and thus no employer provide health care or individual coverage plan, will you get a tax break? No. Further, lets just say that you have a job, (Wal-Mart) and the employer works you 36.5 hours a week, just enough so that your aren’t eligible for the meager benefits; will you get a tax break? No. So, who really benefits, and what does this plan do for those who can afford or don’t have health insurance? Not-a-thing!
Where does there money come to pay for the tax breaks in W’s health care plan? Well, some of it comes from the fact that the benefit “income” would be considered taxable income. Other sources of money include proposed cuts in funding to public hospitals (like harbor view) that provide services to those who currently have no job, and thus no benefits. Does this sound familiar? Take money away for a public institution and give it to a private institution. The theory is that private application of service is always better. Hello! How many times do we need to stroll down the corporate history lane to know that this just isn’t true? Think Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, Various Airlines pension raiding and just recently Huling Brothers auto sales.
So, the plan is really just more of the same; public funding of private service providers for a slice of the population. What W should have said was, it is socially responsible to provide medical care for all of our citizens. However, W’s plan does not address this concept. It’s just a revamped, bi-partisan stamped fluff piece that does nothing to substantively address the real problems of health care in the United States.
2 comments:
Interesting to know.
not sure who this emma is, probably some random blog searcher/writer. I checked the emma tag but it went to some insurance blog. ON the face of the blog I wasn't interested enough to pursue any further. So, emma, thanks for reading. Please come back soon.
Interesting that you did comment on a W health care plan that was strikingly similar to McCain's plan. Hmmm. Oh well.
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