Bush's Health Plan--merged threads

[Retire Soon]

I blame our government in part for the high cost of health insurance. Illegal aliens were encouraged entry into our country by big business in order to provide cheap labor in hopes of undermining the power of labor unions, while the feds stood and watched. This came at a price, in that these criminals were given the most expensive free health care in the emergency wards of our nation's hospitals, which in turn raised the cost of health insurance for American Citizens. Now, big government wants to tax health insurance benefits for law abiding citizens to help finance a war we never should have become involved in.

[youbet]

For me, the important issue would be to level the playing field for all Americans. Why should Megacorp employees receive thousands of dollars in compensation, in the form of free or low cost health plans, tax free while RE types or entrepreneurs generally have to buy their health care with aftertax dollars? Either tax the fair value of what Megacorp provides or allow those who purchase health care on their own to deduct every penny of the premium.

Spoken as a retired Megacorp employee!

[Nords]

Originally Posted by Helena

What about those retirees who have 100% of their health insurance paid by their [former] employer ?

The part of the premium I pay out of my paycheck for my employer sponsored insurance is paid before taxes are taken... ie, it is tax exempt.

TRICARE premiums for retirees are paid for from after-tax dollars.

I'm not sure about TRICARE For Life but it's probably after-tax also.

[Martha]

There is another thread in the health section on the same topic. At first I was so mad I could spit. Maybe I was angry because this is seen as a solution to a very big problem when it is not. I see it as a step towards encouraging employers to have HSA plans with big deductibles. But HSAs are a very poor solution for people who don't make much money or have chronic health issues. Unfortunately, I know a lot of those people and it will just make medical care much more expensive for them. Also, I wonder if we are just going to make the adverse selection problem worse. The young and healthy skip the employers plan and buy a cheaper plan from the non-group market, leaving less healthy older workers in the group plan. This would end up increasing costs in the group market.

But, I do think separating health care from employment is a good idea. This week's Business Week had a short article on job lock and people keeping jobs they don't like and are not productive at for the health care benefits. This is a good discussion to have.

[brewer12345]

Heh, I think I liked the Rude Pundit's take on this nonsense:

"like the bizarro way that Bush used his Saturday address to preview his State of the Union-fresh proposal on health care "reform," which seems to be to punish you for actually having health insurance. Here's some advice for Bush on that: Dude, seriously, unless you wanna actually cover everyone, shut the **** up. It's just such embarrassingly transparent pandering that it's beneath you (which means it's lower than a mole's dick)."


Its pretty clear that this horse pucky was DOA, so I wouldn't waste too much thought on it, Martha.

[modlair]

I've been reading more about this the last few days and details are still scarce, but what I think is the good news here is that there will be a GOP option on the table with at least a hint of conservatism about it.

This will allow the ball to start rolling.

My crystal ball says the Democrats will object because a tax cut does not help the poor. So they will try to maneuver for some sort of tax credit status, either in addition or instead.

Regardless of those maneuvers, the plus in this is that a tax reduction approach is conservative philosophically, and health care insurance is usually thought of as a liberal issue, so this approach in general looks like it has a chance of getting the kind of bipartisan attention necessary for anything at all to happen.

The prez is putting at least SOMETHING on the table. Hard to say that's bad.

[Independent]

I disagree with Bush on a lot of things, but I agree with this one.

It's silly that those of us (and I'm one of them) who work(ed) for megacorp get to buy our healthcare with before tax dollars, but people who work for themselves or for small businesses have to pay with after-tax dollars.

Sure, anything that is a "tax increase" for anyone is automatically attacked by someone. However, if this is really "revenue neutral", it just provides a more level playing field for the self employed and small employers.

[modlair]

Sorry for the cross post here. I'm trying to look ahead.

I've been reading more about this the last few days and details are still scarce, but what I think is the good news here is that there will be a GOP option on the table with at least a hint of conservatism about it.

This will allow the ball to start rolling.

My crystal ball says the Democrats will object because a tax cut does not help the poor. So they will try to maneuver for some sort of tax credit status, either in addition or instead.

Regardless of those maneuvers, the plus in this is that a tax reduction approach is conservative philosophically, and health care insurance is usually thought of as a liberal issue, so this approach in general looks like it has a chance of getting the kind of bipartisan attention necessary for anything at all to happen. To date, there's little attention paid to it at all.

The prez is putting at least SOMETHING on the table. Hard to say that's bad.

[Tadpole]

Ah, a health care AMT in the making. Let's see, at 10-15% increase in insurance per year....

[lets-retire]

Originally Posted by danm

Sure I certainly don't want to pay more taxes either, but in the end these things should reduce the cost of health care.

This is something that has been bothering for a while. I don't profess to be an expert on market forces, in fact in know only the very basics. How can you increase the demand for health care, by giving insurance to everyone and decrease the cost? I would think at the very least the cost would maintain and probably increase more. Is there a large amount of doctors just waiting in the wings to increase the supply? If everyone of the newly covered 47,000,000 have an annual physical it would add over 180,000 new patients per day.

Since the very poor would be subsidized and would receive free health care, they would flock to the doctor for the slightest sniffle. If you think it won't happen, talk to some of the old time military medical people. There were people who had two or three volumes of medical records and most of it was stupid things that could be handled with common sense. The end result was the military got out of providing medical care to dependents. They can go to a military doctor, but only if there is space available, which happens almost never.

My point is expanding coverage is a noble idea, but to me it seems it would result in a very overloaded system. Who would pick up the increase? Is the idea to slowly increase care to everyone so the higher work load is not noticed, because more and more doctors would be added to the pay roll? Would doctors in an academic setting be required to pull so many hours of general practice duties?

[MasterBlaster]

Lets-Retire:

Where do you think it costs less to treat someone... In a doctors office or in an emergency room ? As you know, poor people get free emergency room care.


Thus the concept of healthcare for everyone twist says that the net cost with everyone having basic care is a wash.

Is it true ? - Who knows but I am skeptical. But like many things there is just enough truth there so that the politicos can speak at great length about it.

[lets-retire]

Masterblaster--I understand that the ER is more expensive than a doctor's office. I would think that the increased demand from teh 180,000 per day would either force the doctor's to raise rates of limit patients. I don't think the doctors would be able to raise rates, due to being paid by an insurance company. So that leaves limiting the number of patients they are willing to see.

[d]

Hard to say that's bad.

in the current environment (extending through the past 6 yrs), there are many who would say that anything G.W. says or does is, by definition, bad -- without regard to whatever might be the merits of that said or done.

[AlmostDone]

Quote: "What happens to those retirees whose
former employer pays 100% of their health
insurance?"

What happens to those of us who worked all our lives and don't?

[Helena]

Originally Posted by Retire Soon

I blame our government in part for the high cost of health insurance. Illegal aliens were encouraged entry into our country by big business in order to provide cheap labor in hopes of undermining the power of labor unions, while the feds stood and watched. This came at a price, in that these criminals were given the most expensive free health care in the emergency wards of our nation's hospitals, which in turn raised the cost of health insurance for American Citizens. Now, big government wants to tax health insurance benefits for law abiding citizens to help finance a war we never should have become involved in.

Click the link to the topic article and check out the US map.
It shows the majority of uninsured are in the border states.

coincidence ?

[dylar]

I think most people who are actually concerned about health care are worried about things like the graph below. Source.

[Helena]

Originally Posted by Hamlet

I think the general idea for this bill is to start de-linking our health insurance
and our employment.

I have no doubt this is the intent.

Government fostered illegal workers don't get
employer paid health insurance... so this is the
government's way of leveling the playing field.

btw... when you think of illegal labor, you might
think of those " jobs Americans won't do "... but
don't be deceived... many of the illegal workers
from Mexico are college degreed professionals.

Doing the " jobs Americans won't do " today...
doing your job tomorrow.

[bssc]

My Megacorp is going the High Deductible + HSA next year, which I think will be good for me since I want to take a funded HSA with me.

However, my concern is that the corporations will buy onto the idea of National Healthcase which kind of frightens me.

[mykidslovedogs]

Here's an article that decribes the tax deduction in a bit greater detail:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070121/..._healthcare_dc.

"Currently, employees who receive health coverage through their jobs do not pay taxes on the benefit. Bush would cap the amount of coverage that would be considered tax-free. Anything above that would be taxed as income. The limit for deductions would be $15,000 for families and $7,500 for individuals. The average cost of family health coverage is $11,500."

"For example, a family who bought a $10,000 plan could still take the full $15,000 deduction and pocket the extra money.

"This is essentially a standard deduction for health care, and the size of the deduction will be significantly higher than the cost of an average policy," said a senior White House official. "Because of this, about 80 percent of people with employer-based plans will see their tax liability fall because their insurance policies cost less than the deduction."

I see this as as a great incentive for those who are uninsured by choice to purchase an HSA and put the extra money aside to plan for the deductible.

[Hydroman]

Originally Posted by bssc

The Feds need to balance the budget somehow.

How about pulling out of Iraq, quit awarding non-competitive contracts to Haliburton and ending pork barrel projects like "the bridge to know where" in Alaska?