fullygoldy | Health Care Reform

We listened to the state of the union address on Tuesday, and while I did pay fairly close attention to the health care bits, I just couldn't summon the interest to actively listen to the whole thing. DH seemed to be doing a much better job of following along.

So, the Republicans want to give us a tax credit for health insurance. The way I understand it, this is just an across-the-board flat credit to be issued to everyone based on the size of their household or their filing status. You don't have to actually be paying insurance premiums to receive the credit, but the credit should make it easier to pay any premiums you sign up for. There's other stuff to - the fed could promote universal health care in the states by giving them more money to run those kinds of programs, but that's sort of a trickle-down theory and I haven't thought about it much. I have thought about the tax credit though, and honestly, I don't think much of it.

I seriously believe that an across-the-board tax credit that is earmarked by the feds for citizens to spend on health insurance will achieve 2 things:

1) People who are already struggling to make ends meet will spend the freed-up cash on day-to-day necessities. Their daily lives will be marginally improved, but they still won't have found or procured affordable health insurance.

2) Insurance companies will greet the tax credit/individual budget increases with higher premiums. If people can afford to pay more for their insurance, the price will grow until even less people than before can afford coverage. The "credit" to citizens will in effect become a "subsidy" to insurance corporations. After all, the gas companies have been subsidized all this time, and now that their subsidy has been exposed, the health insurance companies will want theirs too.

This tax credit is not going to fix a broken system. The parts that need fixing outside of the control of the man-on-the-street. The feds need to impress upon the insurance providers that their practices are not beneficial to the insureds. Our health cannot be safeguarded in the free-market economy. The really sad thing is that right after the speech, I was heartened by the fact that the issue had been addressed at all, and that it sounded like someone had actually made an effort to come up with a reform of some kind. But the more I thought about it, the more dis-heartened I'm actually feeling.

Good grief! The ideas that keep coming out of Washington are less than useless.

Let's have a real american brainstorming session. I'm sure you could put this question to 100, 1,000 or 10,000 citizens and come up with as many ideas. Sure, not all of the ideas will be good, or doable, or affordable, but there will be a hell of a lot more to choose from, and maybe we could finally breathe life into this problem and possibly start making progress. In fact, we could do it "American Idol" style, with listening sessions in a handful of major cities, and the people with the best ideas from each city being sent to Washington to present and compete. The public could weigh in on the elimination process (dial-in to CSPAN!) until something solid and workable emerged from the process, something we could have consensus on. And why stop there? It seems like there are many problems or issues that have awaited resolution for far too long - let's do some brainstorming and get them knocked off the list. If we didn't spend all our time, money and effort on spinning our wheels, maybe we could actually DESERVE the title of 'best country in the world.'

Our society is so freaking connected now - there is no reason not to actually reach out and get the citizens involved in the process. This is different than the grass-roots efforts of independent organizations like MoveOn.org. Those organizations have to make themselves too similar to the ones they are fighting to attempt to get anything done. They're valuable right now, because we're feeling that they are the only avenue we have for being heard any more, but what if all they really had to do was review new ideas and proposals and make their opinions/recommendations available to us? Then we could review the competing recommendations and weigh-in via internet or telephone polls that would actually carry weight with our whole congress, not just our representatives. Having reps is a good thing, but they're the only ones we have any kind of access to. What if my rep doesn't like a proposal I like? What if he likes something that the majority of his constituency agrees with, but the majority of the country doesn't? What if I want another rep to know how I feel? We say we send people up there to vote their conscience, but the ones we've got don't seem very interested in representing us or in being conscientious - they all seem like they just want to be re-elected. If everyone could weigh in on the major stuff, then our reps would also be more informed as to what their constituents really want. And maybe we'd also get to reform the whole representation process. Because it seems to me that the type of person this government was designed to be run by is the last person that is actually going to bother running for office these days. Our founding fathers trusted that representatives would be conscientious citizens who cared about the country, the government and their fellow citizens before themselves. And for a long time, their trust was well-placed. But in my lifetime I've seen very few representatives that I believe matched that description or expectation. And I believe the ones who do match it are shoved out and trampled as early as possible by the self-interested politicians so that our choices are limited to bad and worse, with no hope for real improvement or reform.

There has got to be a way to bring the power, reach and promise of the information highway into play here. It's become a huge commercial (commerce) success, but it was designed to be informative. The information should be able to travel both ways, and be readily discernible. What if we had a national listening database? Everyone sends their ideas, like ideas get grouped together, discussion and refining occur, and what finally shakes out is something worthwhile for congress to take up and consider. Since it came from us, they'll know where we stand on it. There is nothing to stop them from putting their pet ideas out there too - the whole point is to increase involvement with the governing process and increase ownership of the government so that we don't have to listen to any more bad ideas and console ourselves with "at least they're thinking about it" ever again.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

that Washington has plum run out of practical ideas for making the world a better place outside the Beltway. You're right about the tax credit thing being a ploy to get more money into the pockets of the insurance industry (when the whole health insurance system should be dismantled and a single-payer system implemented). Plus, the very idea of a tax cut with the kind of deficits we're seeing now is immoral. If our commander in chief had any sense or sensitivity toward his constituency, we would have seen it by now. No luck there.

And no, I don't think it's going to get better with Democrats in power.

I am far too cynical at this point to think that a national listening database would accomplish much.

1. Those folks in government certainly don't want to hear anything The People have to say. They aren't interested in Our ideas. Most have been bought and paid for by corporations, and what corporations don't want to do is provide for their customers. What they want (and is their fiduciary duty) is to provide for their stockholders and their executives. Bottom line.

2. As much as would love to have faith in my fellowpeople as intelligent, good-at-heart folk, I think all one has to do is read an evening paper to find out just how not intelligent and good-at-heart we can be. I am well aware of the high level of craziness out there. Just this week, I talked to a guy who claimed to be in Mensa with an IQ of 180 (that I believed), that he had taken a state employment test back in 1990 and that he had scored the highest in the state for this particular exam (believed that too), but that the state never called him back or tried to contact him for hire (dubious since he'd never heard back from the state with his results, but OK). He felt that he had a case for discrimination. When I asked him on what grounds he had been discrimated, he said it was because he was German.

A German guy being discriminated against for employment with the state of Wisconsin. Interesting theory.

When I read "national listening database", my first thought is clusterfuck. I am reminded of the way that even small e-lists of like-minded people can dissolve into chaos and madness in a very short time. I am reminded of the way everything on the internet seems to devolve into porn, or at least voyeurism. I am reminded of the way that the petty seems to overtake the larger issues of our lives, despite our best efforts otherwise.

Please, my friends, let me be the lone voice of dissent here. PROVE ME WRONG!

I thought the tax credit was going to be offset by making healthcare premiums that are paid taxable income where it isn't right now...? Did I read the transcript wrong?

I didn't read the transcript, but this kind of giving with one hand and taking away with the other is fairly typical. I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn the truth of this, and therefore, the worse truth that there was never any intent to actually do something useful.

Well - haven't read the transcipt yet, but from a super brief quote from some commentator on CNN (?), he seemed to imply that yes, the premiums that a company currently pays on behalf of an employee would then become taxable income FOR THE EMPLOYEE.

And if your company is paying more than the "average" amount for health premiums that qualifies for the tax credit, the employee would then end up paying MORE in taxes (e.g. if $4000 is allowed annually for a tax credit for my family of 7, and my county employer pays $5000 a year for my benefits, *I* would need to pay taxes on the $1000 "extra" for my health insurance).

Which means that I would be subsidizing the tax credit for other people.

Which in some ways, I don't have a problem with.

BUT it helps to excuse corporations (like WalMart) who didn't/don't bother to offer affordable health insurance to their employees. And those corporations have a HECK of a lot more money than I do.

(And I'm not even addressing the insurance companies raising premiums, or how it would allow health providers to offer lower quality care for higher prices, or..... Argh.)

This is taken from the SOTU transcripts..

"And so tonight, I propose two new initiatives to help more Americans afford their own insurance. First, I propose a standard tax deduction for health insurance that will be like the standard tax deduction for dependents. Families with health insurance will pay no income on payroll tax -- or payroll taxes on $15,000 of their income. Single Americans with health insurance will pay no income or payroll taxes on $7,500 of their income. With this reform, more than 100 million men, women, and children who are now covered by employer-provided insurance will benefit from lower tax bills. At the same time, this reform will level the playing field for those who do not get health insurance through their job. For Americans who now purchase health insurance on their own, this proposal would mean a substantial tax savings -- $4,500 for a family of four making $60,000 a year. And for the millions of other Americans who have no health insurance at all, this deduction would help put a basic private health insurance plan within their reach. Changing the tax code is a vital and necessary step to making health care affordable for more Americans".

the way I read it is that you will not be taxed on $15,000 of you income if you currently have insurance. If you have insurance on your own then you are allowed a 4,500 credit on your takes (family of four making 60,000) Now I happen to have personal experience here and I can tell you that crappy insurance that offers no in area coverage for Dr's or hospitals ( meaning the insurance only covers 55%) costs aprox @1,800 per month or $21,600 per year, now add on the 45% you have to pay for the dr visit etc and things really addup quickly. Granted $4,500 tax credit helps a little, but I cannot see where this is going to make insurance affordable for anyone? So now my insurance only costs $17,100 a year.hummmmm!
I must also agree that this will simply give the insurance co's reason to raise there rates because there is no regulation to stop them for doing it. I see this whole subject as just a mention in the State of the Union so that it appears that something is being done. Well something yes, something useful and problem solving , not so much

Health Care Reform

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