Your Health Care May Decide The 2008 Election
Now we're in the presidential campaign's silly season. The primaries are over; the conventions yet to come. Americans are tuning out politics and dialing in baseball and the Olympics, vacations. and the price of gas.
Obama is traveling abroad, demonstrating that he really is a responsible driver. And McCain seems intent on running into every pothole in the road. This week, he published an op-ed in the New York Post slamming Obama for agreeing with the Iraqi Prime Minister that it is time to bring the troops home by 2010. Sure, McCain admitted, "Iraq's army will be equipped and trained by the middle of next year," but it will still need a lot of help. "The Iraqi air force, for one, still lags behind, and no modern army can operate without air cover." Particularly not against the fearsome al Qaeda AIr Force. And McCain didn't even mention the need to build Iraq a blue water navy. The $3 trillion dollars Nobel Laureate Joe Stiglitz estimates we've squandered on the war -- about a billion a day in direct and indirect costs -- aren't nearly enough.
Americans will begin to tune into the election again around the conventions. And in the fall, they'll start to take a closer look at who the candidates are and what they believe. Issues matter less in this assessment than broad measures of the candidate's character and sense about whether he has a clue.
In this assessment, I suspect that one issue, seldom mentioned now, is going to matter a great deal by November. Iraq will be big no doubt; the economy bigger. But health care may just be the pothole that cracks up McCain's Straight Talk express.
People worry a lot about affording health care. Workers accept lower wages with employers that offer health care. They hang onto lousy jobs to keep their health care. Most labor negotiations and disputes center largely on the costs of health care. On this issue, attention is paid over kitchen tables across the country.
So this fall, Americans will discover an inconvenient truth about John McCain. He wants you to lose your employer-based health care. He thinks you aren't sufficiently conscious about the cost of your health care, and you are using too much of it.
His plan is designed -- with sugar and sticks -- to push you to negotiate on your own with the friendly insurance companies. He'll give you a tax credit -- $2500 for an individual; $5000 for a family -- to help you pay the price. And he'll revoke the tax exemption for any health benefits your employer provides. Under his plan, those benefits will be taxed as income. McCain says this will reduce our health care expenditures. He might be right. His preferred option -- health saving accounts -- generally feature low monthly payments and very high deductibles. People tend to insure themselves against catastrophe, and take a chance on routine health care.
On average, they'll work pretty well if you are young and healthy and lucky. But if you are sick, if you have suffered serious illnesses in the past, if you have what insurers call a "pre-existing condition," or if you are older and at higher risk, you're in trouble. For many, insurance won't be available at any price. That's why Elizabeth Edwards noted that, neither she nor McCain would be eligible for coverage since both have struggled with cancer. Many more will find adequate coverage unaffordable. Others will have to wrestle with choosing between paying to see a doctor or buying the weekly groceries. You'll be more "sensitive to price," but you might not think that a good thing.
McCain extols the benefits of private health insurance, but he's never had to negotiate with insurance companies. He's been on government provided health care virtually his entire life. He was raised on military health care, as the son of an admiral. He then went to the Naval Academy and to the military. A year after leaving the military, he was headed to the Congress and enjoying the best government supplied health care of all.
For the nine of ten voters that have some kind of health insurance at work, the contrast will be clear. Senator Obama will give them a choice between the health care they have and being able to buy into a public plan, something like Medicare. Senator McCain will tax their employer based health care, and give them a break to negotiate their own deal with the insurance companies. At the same time, he liberate the insurance companies from the state-based regulations that have provided some protection for consumers.
Invest in the Iraqi Air Force. Tax employer based health care. Liberate the insurance companies. Leave you on your own on health care. If this keeps up, voters may decide it is time to take the keys away from the Straight Talk Express.
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So, if Congress - basically the American Tax Payer - allows McCain health insurance (Damn Good Health Insurance too) - then will he now receive a tax credit for his family and have to negotiate his health insurance? Or is that just for us peons who work for a living?
Unfortunatley as support grows for House Resolution 676 the insurance lobby along with willing partners in the labor movement and so-called liberal political groups have created Healthcare For All America Now. While the superficial ideals of HCAN are indeed admirable, the fact is as long as the private insurance companies are allowed to dominate and participate, there will NEVER be real healthcare reform! It isn't rocket science. As the health insurance profits soar to record levels, our healthcare delivery continues to go down the toilet! We cannot afford to continue allowing the so-called market to dictate to us what our healthcare is all about! Healthcare is a basic human right, not a commodity or privilege! At least that is how it is viewed in most nations around the world!
For some reason, American conservatives have opposed government healthcare. We provide battlefield and veteran's care and, but more coverage is called that bad word, "socialism," or liberalism which weakens our character and ruins our country. There is a popular sentiment that people with serious conditions should not be tossed out the back door into the alley to die. Radio hosts run fund raisers for selected recepients which is somewhat of a joke since it is whimsical and arbitrary and not necessarily good medicene.
Historically, conservative parties elsewhere in the world have promoted universal healthcare. Bismarck introduced it to Germany. MacArthur installed it in Japan. When we remember how conservatives once promoted abortion as part of a program of eugenics whereas, now, they oppose it as murder, we have to recognize that being conservative has nothing to do with being consistant or practical. Basically, being conservative means hating: women, gays, minorities, foreigners. You want to see your "enemies" suffer.
Once Western medicene was very bad medicene. Think of T. Roosevelt refusing doctor care after being shot until he could get to Chicago and specialists he respected, saying, he wasn't going to put his life in the hands of the kind of quacks who killed Garfield and McKinley. Today, medicene works and it is essential to preserve and enhance our lives. It is time to join and organize the payment of healthcare just as we pay for public schools or traffic control.
"It is time to join and organize the payment of healthcare just as we pay for public schools or traffic control."
yeah, i don't hear anybody complaining about socialized police forces, or firehouses, or post offices. for those who say health care wasn't guaranteed in the constitution: health care didn't exist the way we know it today when the constitution was written. if everyone within our borders doesn't deserve affordable health care then no one does. the health of our populace is our greatest asset.
McCain has it half right. Health care should have NOTHING to do with your employer. How we got into this absurd situation where your health care is tied to your job... is beyond me. Is your CAR INSURANCE tied to your employer? Of course not.
Obama made vague noises about making insurance "affordable". But what does that mean? It means he's NOT for universal health care, he's for the same old insurance company system.
Health insurance companies are the biggest problem with our health care delivery system. They are a for-profit organization metering out your health care, telling doctors what treatment plan they can use, and soon, grading doctors by name on the internet.
Health insurance companies should be phased out and made illegal.
McBama and O'Same are both in the pocket of Big Insurance. You will NEVER get meaningful health insurance reform from either candidate. That is just a PLAIN FACT.
NEVER.
-Wexler
Vote Nader '08
You can't call it a fact if you provide no evidence to back it up.
Enjoy wasting your vote by the way.
These were McCain's health care talking points, and may still be: 1) Affordable, 2) Portable, 3) On Line records, 4) Cheaper, 5) Malpractice reform-- so doctors don't practice defensive medicine, 6) Catastrophic illness provision.
Less premiums translates to less coverage or price caps or subsidies. Portable is maybe universal, no job required; how about preexisting conditions? On line publication raises the spector of consulting with your physician in New Dehli, not to mention privacy issues. McCain thinks defensive medicine makes for higher health cost. Yes, an X-ray is more expensive than an aspirin. As for catastrophic illness, maybe we'll be deported to Mexico on an exchange basis, say a catatonic for a lettuce picker. Whatever the details, in McCain's system I would be dead now, but that fellow Obama wants to raise my taxes.
Folks, just keep in mind this one fact about employer-based health care--those of us who insure our domestic partners and our blended families are taxed on our health care coverage for our partners as "income" and we have been and will continue to be. So what is the big deal all you heteros? We are already picking up the bill on this.
As a 55 Yr.old male who as a child got Rheumatic Fever and it damaged my heart unknown to me until I had several Heart attacks that caused futher damage to my heart, insurance on my own is out of the question. My employer has health insurance through the state of Colorado. But, due to my age, the amount I must pay per month is 717.00. I clear 1300.00 if I took the insurance it would leave me 583.00 a month to live on, housing, food, lights. I do not have cable, a car or own my own home. My souce of entertainment and news is this computer and my cell phone. Thats it...I'm happy but scared of the future and what life has in store for me health wise. I only hope that if and when the next heart attack comes it takes me out of this world without having huge bills to deal with as an aftermath!!! McCain and others like him do not realize what a life without is like and never will, but I'm an optimist deep down and I trust in God to provide me what I need to get through this life without getting bitter and angry and I'm richer for this experience.
Why are you whining? You clearly should have made better choice. But you selected rheumatic fever and now are running from the consequences.
You can cover anything, Liberalloons? Any health care situation? Good to know.
There is a local couple who met with my state representative recently; he told me this last night at a health care forum. The couple is somewhat older, and self-employed; they've both worked hard all their lives as fishers. They are insured; they pay dearly for insurance. Now the wife has congenital heart failure, and while she's been listed and approved for a heart transplant, and her insurance will cover the transplant surgery, it won't cover anything else. Included expenses that aren't covered, before, during, and after the surgery, are expected to reach over a million dollars. They're holding bake sales and other fundraisers to try to raise the funds.
I'll be happy to give them your name and contact information, knowing that you can afford to come up with that million dollars if anything should happen to you, right off the bat. I'm sure you'll help them raise the funds so that she can get the transplant and so both of them can keep on working post-transplant.
I know that it could just as easily be me in that situation. I have insurance through my husband's employer's group health plan. We pay the full cost of my insurance every month. But my lifetime maximum benefit for all costs associated with a transplant is $500,000, and with costs reaching a million, I may not be able to get the kidney transplant I need after all.
There is no such thing as "health care," as that term is commonly tossed around. It has been sold to us by the AMA and the insurance industry. No doctor ever dispensed good health. No hospital ever made anyone healthy. Good health comes from proper diet, vigorous exercise, non-smoking. What they mean is "medical insurance," which is not all that expensive. I am now on Medicare, but at age 64 I had to be in one of the highest-risk categories for a non-smoker. A $2,000 deductible, hospital-only, medical insurance policy from one of the nation's largest insurers cost me $50/month. So there.
You mean you didn't need government to get your coverage? What a concept, find a solution to your own problems.
Hmm, a high deductible policy that covers nothing but hospitalization. Not much of a solution for the majority of people. And, of course, now that Medicare is in the picture, so is the government.
Here is a story. It is a story about Health Care. It is about a heart attack. It is about that heart attack, transportation to a surgical unit specializing in the surgery necessary, the surgery and the meds. It is a story that is going to break your heart (sorry, but maybe not). Here it is. My brother-in-law, a Canadian citizen who makes less as a musician than he is actually worth, had a heart attack three years ago last month. He was rushed to a hospital, admitted and stabilized. He was tested and prodded and poked, as is normal in most hospital situations. He was x-rayed and tested again. The doctors advised Stents. Soo-once he was stable, he was FLOWN to Toronto where the surgery happened and was back home in Windsor within ten days of the incident. COST? Oh-this is an OBSCENE Number-FORTY DOLLARS!! FORTY DOLLARS. And he's not a member of the government or a big high muckety muck that would get the alleged long waits any adverse publicity. He didn't HAVE TO WAIT! Nope! Not at ALL. Can you really tell ME that the American form of 'sickness insurance' is better? I don't think so. Remember-this WAS major surgery and not without risk. He owes his LIFE to the Canadian National Health Insurance system. And there are hundreds more stories just like that one. Private insurance companies are a BUSINESS. And the business of business is to make PROFITS.
Don't be too sure that Americans will discover ANY inconvenient truths about McC. At least not those Americans who rely on the MSM. And certainly not the Fox audience.
This is a really interesting story outlining the differences between the candidates' plans.
I would like to point readers to a resource online for free guides to what health insurance protections you do have in your state right now, and what consumer protections you lack. These guides are from Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute, and if you need to buy individual health insurance or can't afford your health insurance any more, you can find out whether there are options that protect you.
www.health
What happens if you are sick for an extended period of time, as would probably be the case under the proposed plan, and you are unable to pay the high deductible?
The government does not have the skill, expertise, or legal authority to be involved in this.
It also does not have the money or legal authority to provide universal health care.
After health insurance, the next casualties will be social security and medicare
Pretty soon, the only people getting any benefits from the government will be ... you guessed it, the government itself, the very Senators, Congressmen and (of course) the Executive and Judicial branches ... the very people who are think the rest of us are just a bunch of whiners who want to live on the public dime.
Except that the "public dime" is ours, and it will be supporting the comfortable careers of our elected and appointed public officials. Don't even think about the pensions these folks get. Move along, folks, nothing to see here.
"New rule:" Congress must play by the same rules they set up for us. No employer-based insurance. They pay their own tab and deal with the insurance companies, just like we'll have to. And no more voting themselves fat raises every year. Hey, they work for us, not the other way round. If Congress wants a raise, let *us* vote whether or not they've earned it.
You want to see their popularity go up? See what happens when they have to come hat in hand to the voters for raises and benefits.
Just a thought, and I admit I am a little ignorant in this department, but why can't there be public healthcare and private healthcare at the same time? Is it a question of quality?
And how would universal healthcare be implemented?
I assume doctors would still own their practices. And the cost would be subsidized?
Anyone know?
The easiest and best way would simply be to expand Medicare to cover everybody.
I would speculate (and bear in mind I'm a retired clarinet player, not an economist) that the docs would be required to work x hours a week on the public system then they can do what they want the rest of the time. I think that's the way it was working in England where I grew up.
First, Obama is proposing public and private healthcare, and giving people the option of choosing between an employer or private-based insurance policy and the expanded public policy he wants to implement (think Medicare for everyone). Not really universal healthcare, but its a step in the right direction.
If we implemented universal health care on the Canadian model, doctors would own their practices, and would submit insurance claims to a single entity, the government. This would simplify the process and free up doctors to spend more time with patients. The cost would be could be subsidized by a number of things, most likely an increase in Medicare taxes. But considering how much Americans are paying for premiums already, this would actually save them money. Also, bringing the technology used in healthcare up to 21st century standards would save massive amounts of money.
This is a very good post -- Obama should be able to beat McCain just on this issue alone. Not only does Obama have a better plan for health care that will greatly increase insurance coverage in the US population, but it is also more conservative, in that people who are happy with their current health plans aren't forced to switch to a new system (although many will probably want to, since his Federal insurance plan is likely to be less expensive that traditional insurance plans).
But McCain wants to do nothing except make group health insurance *much* more expensive. This will leave your typical individual completely at the mercy of the large insurers. No insurer will touch anyone with a pre-existing condition, and that includes continuing to insure at a reasonable cost anyone who gets sick. What's the purpose of having insurance at all if you can't afford to use it?
In a word, McCain's plan will make health insurance in this country significantly worse for everyone.
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