Hey, even the big corporate boys have figured out that universal healthcare is pro-business. Problem is SOME business don't agree (the for profit insurance companies) and they're spending the lobbying cash like it is water! Fueling re-election campaigns far and wide!
Wow, how many ways can we travel off topic in this one thread ;-)
Chris
99BBB
Personally, I think health insurance should be outlawed. Yep. Mandatory, CATASTROPHIC health coverage should be the norm, where you can't lose your livelihood, your home, your retirement, your life savings, or your children's college savings due to sickness, disease, or accident. Those who can't afford the premiums for such should get a tax credit (not deduction; credit) for the cost of the premium. Public option, sure. For regular, routine, everyday health care, return the costs to the user and let THEM put pressure on the health care providers to control costs at the point of purchase, just as they do with other consumer goods and services. Remove the income percentage rule on health care tax DEDUCTIONS, and let everyone deduct the actual cost of their health spending from their income. Give lower income families a tax credit for annual health care spending, and get the insurance companies and their legions of claims denying paper pushers (and their overhead costs and profits) out of our health care decisions.
But no one in a million years would go for the above!
But that won't help folks who don't make enough to owe taxes, unless it gets added to their withholding refunds. You might be surprised how much you can make without owing taxes, due to certain deductions. It could be as much as double the official "poverty" level--not dirt-poor, but still having to make careful choices, and unable to afford $1000/month for insurance.
Current high-deductible catastrophic insurance plans are predatory rip-offs. It can be difficult to get them to pay for *anything*. The automatic initial response these days is to deny any claim, and make you appeal the ruling. Policies are deliberately written in weasel language to suggest one thing, then you're told you misinterpreted the plan and your claim is not covered.
All insurance companies blow dead rats.
Yeah, that's why I said a tax credit, not a deduction. As I understand it, many poverty-level family heads not only don't pay anyt taxes, they still get tax refunds. If they're not paying taxes, they're get a larger refund. That in effect *becomes* the income needed for the insurance.
Right, that's what they do with regular medical insurance as well. So, get rid of the regular insurance entirely, add a public option for the catastrophic coverage (so that the private companies have to compete) and lower the overall incidence of insurance bullshit by about 95% in one fell swoop.
No arguments there; I just had to send off a letter at lunch to the state insurance commissioner - my insurance company has chosen to simply ignore my claim for the final disposition on my Miata - not deny it, not negotiate it, just IGNORE it. And while it is not the first claim ever, it is only the third claim in 27 years with the same company, which has covered cars for my entire family of five during that period. Pretty s***ty behavior.
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