Bush's Health Plan--merged threads

[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]

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]

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]

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/pl_nm/bush_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]

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?

 

[lets-retire]

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?

1) Can't now it would result in an even more unstable situation costing more than it is costing to stay.

2) If there was someone who could have done the contracts in the time and manner needed there would have been competition.

3) Good idea.

 

[eytonxav]

I agree with symmetrical tax treatment and even suggest implementing a flat tax system to cut out all the goobily goop that favors the upper and lower incomes,while the middle class gets screwed. Aren't we afterall, a country of predominantly middle class people. Also, agree that legislature should be enacted by voting on only one bill at a time; not taking a good idea and then adding on 100 non-related bad ideas to get the original bill passed.

 

[mykidslovedogs]

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

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070121/pl_nm/bush_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.

Let's Retire: One good thing about this plan is it will encourage people to open up HSAs, and inherent in these plan designs is incentive for people to use their healthcare wisely and not go to the Dr. for every little sniffle and sneeze. Even if we cover a lot of low income folks with a tax credit, providing them enough extra money to fund their deductible in an HSA, they will have incentive to use wisely...or lose the advantage of having the savings account in tact. However, you are correct...I do think that it will be hard to control inflation after we flood the market with millions more insured people. Prices of healthcare will inevetably go up. On the other hand, having several more million healthy people in the pool should help curb the rise in insurance premiums.

 

[brewer12345]

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.

Yes, both of them. They live in a magical land with both conservative republican gay men, the three black men against affirmative action, and both Baptist liberals.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this pandering nonsense will result in those of us living in the states that already provide most of the tax revenue (blue states) for the benefit of flyover country (red states) will be milked a little more. But since this is going nowhere, it doesn't really matter.

 

[lets-retire]

Brewer I guess the fact that 10% of the country's wealth (per a Mortgage industry study from 2004) is located in Florida interferes with you assumption. The last time I checked Florida was very red.

 

[brewer12345]

Brewer I guess the fact that 10% of the country's wealth (per a Mortgage industry study from 2004) is located in Florida interferes with you assumption. The last time I checked Florida was very red.

And a large chunk of that wealth is due to retirees from blue states moving to "America's Wang."

 

[bssc]

And since no one else has said it, "National Sales Tax." To finance the Spanish-American War, of course.

 

[lets-retire]

Actually I think it's largely due to the fact that many highly paid celebrities/CEOs have Florida listed as their home state, due to no state income taxes. Although the retirees are a large number they just typically don't, have the huge estates of the celebrities/CEOs. When you have someone like Preston/Travolta and compare their worth to the retiree's, you can see where it takes many, many retirees just to equal that wealth. I can name several other very highly paid celebrities/CEOs just on the west coast of Florida, but won't bore you with the list.

 

[brewer12345]

Actually I think it's largely due to the fact that many highly paid celebrities/CEOs have Florida listed as their home state, due to no state income taxes. Although the retirees are a large number they just typically don't, have the huge estates of the celebrities/CEOs. When you have someone like Preston/Travolta and compare their worth to the retiree's, you can see where it takes many, many retirees just to equal that wealth. I can name several other very highly paid celebrities/CEOs just on the west coast of Florida, but won't bore you with the list.

Perhaps. I'd hazard a guess that a lot of those folks would not be voting for chimpy in the last election.

 

[FIRE'd@51]

From MKLD's link -

"Bush's proposal would for the first time allow people to take a tax deduction -- similar to the one used by homeowners for their mortgage costs -- when they buy health coverage on their own instead of through an employer."

I assume this is another example of a reporter not knowing what she is talking about (or maybe just sloppy writing). If the deduction is like home mortgage interest, it would require itemizing on schedule A. I would assume the proposal would be to give an above the line deduction similar to an IRA (not mortgage interest), which would help more middle-class folks. Does anyone know more about how this is really supposed to work?