Unlike the current health system where insurance premiums send people into bankruptcy, the plan provides tax credits for working families to help them cover their costs. The tax credits will ensure that working families never have to pay more than a limited percentage of their income for health care.
This aspect of Hilary's health plan may be more important than some people realize. It is generally assumed that people with health insurance are protected in almost all cases against a financial dooms day by their coverage. Americans that do need health insurance have some outragously high premiums. I have found an article that is titled: When staying alive means going bankrupt. This title is meant to grab attention, but provides a story about some of the hardship that people may have to endure even with insurance (let alone people without insurance).
The story that is told in this article is about a female, mother of three with a very good past credit history who had ovarian cancer two times and the medical bills she incured caused her to go bankrupt. Her monthly premius is $619 and she is liable for up to $7,000 with co-payments and her deductable. She was forced to file for bankruptsy with medical bills that were totalling $20,000. At that time BCBS of California said that the reason that her $7,000 cap was broken is because she did not follow the proper protocol when attempting to dispute the charges. This was a very difficult situation and a sad story. I am not trying to claim that everyone is being mistreated, but I am saying that there are instances when working families are literally a single medical catastrophe away from bankrupt.
We need to find a way to help the people who are working hard and just have had some bad luck. Take a second to look over the article. Hillary's tax breaks would allow for less of the take home money go toward health insurance. Is there a better way to fix problems like the case presented above?
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6 comments:
How can tax credits inherently save people from mountainous health care costs? That will lead people to feel less accountable for their health care costs (which if you believe the reports easy access to health care causes people to go to the doctor for trivial things and drives up health care costs) and it could very well bankrupt the government or lead to greater taxation. If I wanted to be taxed out of my mind to save everybody I can move to Europe - the socialist system there provides for that - it is okay for America to not take that approach. Perhaps we work out a deal with the EU that will have them take everyone that wants social medicine and make them a citizen.
This is an interesting view and maybe a little extreme, but I do understand what your saying. The tax credits cannot inherently save people from mountainous health care costs, but the belief is that if everyone had health care insurance then the cost of health care would decrease. This may or may not be the case.
The most important part of her plan would be how low income families would be able to aquire health care coverage. This could become very expensive.
Although you are not being taxed now you still shoulder the burden of the uninsured when you pay high prices for health services: This is a result of Cost Sharing.
The crux of this argument is the belief that if everybody has insurance it will lower the cost - I don't know if I believe that. What are the facts behind making that assumption - the health care system is already taxed to meet the demand - if we add millions of people to the system who can go to the doctor when they want don't we stress and already stressed system. The laws of economics would say that in a situation of high demand and tight supply costs will go up not down! (see the current price of oil as an example).
Maybe you guys can help me out with this- what is so different between this health care plan and the health care plan that didn't pass that Hillary proposed as first lady?
Salt H2O... There are alot of differences, but the biggest is the way they would restructure the system. The 1993 health plan went for a all encompassing reform. At that time there was agreement throughout the country that we needed health care reform, but once the details began to be discussed (where to get the money, who would pay, taxes, HMO type plans, what MD's you could see) people got scared and the supporters splintered and began to argue on the details. The candidates today have learned from the 93 debate and seem to be a little vague about the details of their plans. I believe the details of these plans are "inside the beltway issues" they are very complex and should be left up to the experts to iron out. In '93 the media had a large roll in presenting details to the public and most of the time the details were misrepresented. I will work to put together a post that simply breaks down the difference between the plans and outlines the 93 plan. Salt H20 thank you so much for reading! I appreciate your comments!
There would be some pretty big tax credits given. Once everybody has health care would their be a rush on the system (people getting procedures done that they couldn't afford before)? I just don't understand where all of this money will come from (and still have a balanced budget).
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