Apparently President Bush is starting to feel our pain. The State of the Union speech is likely to include his plan for fixing the health care problem in the U.S.
When I first read about this in the New York Times yesterday, I was quite confused.
President Bush intends to use his State of the Union address Tuesday to tackle the rising cost of health care with a one-two punch: tax breaks to help low-income people buy health insurance and tax increases for some workers whose health plans cost significantly more than the national average.
The basic concept is that employer-provided health insurance, now treated as a fringe benefit exempt from taxation, would no longer be entirely tax-free. Workers could be taxed if their coverage exceeded limits set by the government. But the government would also offer a new tax deduction for people buying health insurance on their own.
Since this approach made absolutely no sense, I assumed I had misread or misunderstood what was intended.
Apparently not.
In Paul Krugman’s opinion piece today (subscription only), he points out that the plan is a wrong-headed as I thought.
First, the plan assumes that low-income people don’t buy health insurance as a matter of choice. I think that most people would love to have it, but are too busy buying things like food and shelter. A tax break for buying health insurance? Give me a break. Yeah, that will help.
In his Saturday radio address:
Mr. Bush suggested that we should “treat health insurance more like home ownership.” He went on to say that “the current tax code encourages home ownership by allowing you to deduct the interest on your mortgage from your taxes. We can reform the tax code, so that it provides a similar incentive for you to buy health insurance.”
I may be wrong, but I see nothing like universal home ownership in this country.
Krugman also points out that besides lower-income Americans there is another group that is uninsured.
…many can’t get coverage because of pre-existing conditions — everything from diabetes to a long-ago case of jock itch. Again, tax deductions won’t solve their problem.
Ooops. I guess no one is supposed to notice that glaring loophole.
As bad as all that is, our President appears to believe that some middle class workers have it too good when it comes to health insurance.
Mr. Bush is also proposing a tax increase — not on the wealthy, but on workers who, he thinks, have too much health insurance. The tax code, he said, “unwisely encourages workers to choose overly expensive, gold-plated plans. The result is that insurance premiums rise, and many Americans cannot afford the coverage they need.”
No word on whether the health insurance coverage for the Prez and Congress is “gold-plated.”
I truly cannot comprehend where Bush is coming from. Is he beyond cynical? Ignorant? Unintelligent? Lacking in empathy?
If this plan is actually presented in the State of the Union speech what is the appropriate response. Laughter at the ludicrousness of it? Demands for competency hearings?
All I know is that this whole thing has made me feel nauseated.
All of the above.
But fortunately, Senator Jim Webb is doing the rebuttal, and he is sharp.
Now if Bush wanted to actually DO something about healthcare costs for low-and-moderate income people, he COULD make ALL medical expenses tax-deductable… ALL expenses, whether paid in premiums, medical bills, copayments, prescription meds, or deductables.
I’d say the plans the Congress and President have are definately golden–bet they have neither premiums nor deductables to speak of… possibly not even copayments.
I’m looking forward to Webb’s response.
These plans or proposals always drive me nuts. This one stinks particularly.
For instance. If you have a person over age 66 that has no other income but SS, you have to pay (for now, it keeps going up)$98 for Medicare every month. I know lots of younger folks think that THEY are paying for my Medicare, but if so, so am I. This does not include Plan B Rx drugs which is an additional monthly fee, and if you possibly think you can afford it, it does not cover supplemental insurance to cover the Medicare Gap.
Now I am always in favor of Tax Cuts that favor the working guy. . .but I don’t have to pay taxes on my small SS income. . .so tax cuts do nothing for me and the millions of other older persons who have only SS to rely on. I don’t have Plan B, can’t afford it and I don’t need it presently. I don’t have Medicare Gap insurance, can’t afford that either. I was never asked if I wanted Medicare coverage. It was automatically doled out to me and the cost deducted from my monthly check. If I can drop it, I will drop that too. I figure when it’s time to go, I’ll just go quietly without the messy kicking and screaming and extraordinary means of medical intervention.
The premise of these vile Neo-Cons is totally nuts. The uninsured are NOT choosing to be uninsured because they have a choice. They CAN’T AFFORD IT! When the choice is spending $300 a month on insurance or eating, what choice is there? If they choose insurance over food, they will soon die and won’t have any need for insurance anyway. This is a no brainer. And it’s all well and good to say, “Yeah, but with a tax cut you’ll get some of it back at the end of the year.” But give me a freakin break!! They don’t have the money in the first place, so a deduction doesn’t do diddley for them.
Everyone needs access to a doctor, a clinic, a hospital, to basic health care. PERIOD! Tax breaks won’t do it for most of the 46 million uninsured. For the rest of the insured folks, I think it should all be deductible, every penny.
Oh, I can think of some folks who will benefit from the Bush insurance proposal: persons like people who work for themselves, and who bring in enough income to purchase health insurance while keeping up with their other expenses, and who also itemize their tax deductions. Won’t do a thing for the lady who works at my dry cleaners, for example. She doesn’t have health insurance, and couldn’t afford it whether or not it was deductible.
About twenty years ago, I had a friend whose diabetes made him virtually uninsurable. Many companies had turned him down flat, though his diabetes was well-controlled and he had no complications. The cost of buying individual insurance for himself and his wife, from the one company that offered him a policy, was 60% of his gross income. I cannot imagine that the price today for a similar individual would be cheaper.
I was turned down because I had a functional heart murmur when I was born (over half of children will have a completely functional – or nonserious – heart murmur at some point during childhood). No physical heart problems then, or since then. I went without coverage until I found work that provided insurance.
Bush’s proposal is no solution at all for people who can’t get insurance because they are too poor, or have some insurance-barring status or history. Rack up another one for Bush’s base.
Exactly!
I don’t know if I am more amazed that some people think this will work, or that someone actually thought this plan up in the first place.
I don’t know if they really believe it will work or if they are using it as a diversion.
As for thinking it up — amazed, stunned, gobsmacked, reeling, horrified, dumstruck — I can’t begin to describe how I feel.
I wasn’t necessarily talking about the administration believing it will work, but rather about the right wing noise machine that is sure to be trumpeting this as if it is a part of a new New Deal.
Every time I hear another line of BS like this, I imagine Dubya as Mr. Toad from Wind In The Willows shouting, “Send the bill to MacBadger! MacBadger will pay!”
Whattaloadacrap!
Perhaps this is also a meager (and bizarre) attempt to steal Hillary’s thunder before the campaign begins in earnest.
In any event, penalizing those who have better health plans is only an insentive to choose a lesser plan. And then when the lesser plan fails to cover required services, where does one go? Medicaid?
Instead, employers should receive incentives for offering health coverage benefits.
I would break out laughing like a banshee if he tried to slide that utter bullcrap past me. Instead, what I expect we’ll see is thunderous applause in the House of Unreality.
It think maybe the solution to these many ridiculous plans is to make the Pres, the VP, all Senators and Congress folks and anyone advising them about health care live on $980 a month. Give them a 12 year old car, a house or apartment at $500 a month (very much under real costs)and have them live on it for 6 months. No family that is able to help them financially, no extras anywhere. Let them see how paying for groceries (that go up in price every month), heat, lights and phone, gas for the car, insurance for the car, property taxes, and a broken something in the house that needs to be fixed at least once during any given 6 month period, and any and all of the other things that need paying for. Let them experience it. Let them figure out how to go to a dentist. . .medicare doesn’t pay for tooth replacements. There are endless things they would have to figure out how to cover. Let them try it. Then see what type of health care they come up with.
It will never happen, but it should. A dose of reality might help them a lot.
to your idea: they also should have to send their kids to the public school their $500/month apartment entitles them to.
Let me amend this just a little further: No person should be eligible for any elected or appointed office in the Federal Government unless they have done exactly as described above, within the three years immediately prior to the election in question. (That includes incumbents.)
One of the things that impressed me the most about Bill Clinton in ’92 is that he was able off the top of his head to rattle off the price you would pay in Arkansas for various staple groceries — a loaf of bread, a gallon of milk. Bush the Elder couldn’t do it for any jurisdiction, and in fact had never seen a supermarket scanner before 1992. Anyone who can’t do that doesn’t deserve to represent anyone.
I’m with you on this one Shirls.
This so-called “plan” reminds me of the many times I’ve looked at proposed solutions and noticed that the guys writing the legislation are developing responses that would work in their situation.
One of my favorite examples was a state bill that would take away the ability to get a driver’s license for kids who had been chronically truant. These suburban and middle class lawmakers were reflecting on their own adolescence and coming up with the consequence that would have hit them the hardest.
What they missed is that a huge number of urban youth don’t live in a world where cars and driving are possible. If someone was to say to them, “You’ll loose your driver’s license if you skip school too much,” their response would be “Bring it on.”
All the Bush Whitehouse knows is tax cuts – because that is their one and only motivator.
…long ago in The Health Security For All Americans Act. The chimp doesn’t have a clue.
Why we haven’t got it yet:
We’re still waiting <sigh>.
Ah, Senator Wellstone. Wish he had a twin or a clone or something. Our country lost so much.