Post by Clark F MorrisOn Wed, 8 Oct 2008 06:52:39 -0700 (PDT), drydem
Post by WilliamWho are all you guys going to vote for?
Normally I don't like endorsing a candidate
but this time I will make an exception.
I am going to vote for Obama.
Why?
Because I dont like McCain's idea of taxing healthcare benefits.
The ever rising cost of healthcare (which is already high)
will mean even with McCain's counterbalancing of fixed
tax creditsv-- will eventually be far too little to offset
the cost for the taxes especially when a catastrophic healthcare
event occurs, e.g. cancer or a spinal injury. This will
affect the old and less financially well off even more so.
It sets the stage where many whom are facing probably one of
the worst healthcare events of their lives will find
McCain's proposed government taxes on healthcare
to be significant burdensome. Multiply this by McCain's
*free market* principles that don't provide any means
or safe guards to contol medical cost or provide
minimal coverage protections and you have a recipe for
disaster. Thus it sets a stage where our
government actually becomes part of the problem
in providing healthcare rather than a solution to it.
While McCain might not have developed his healthcare
plan by himself - his endorsement and incorporation
of it in his political platform demostrates to me
why I shouldn't vote for him.
The change that McCain is promoting is to make the health insurance
NOT a taxable deduction to the employer (i.e. any employer
contribution would be considered taxable income to the recipient) and
then have an up to five thousand dollar refundable tax credit
available to the purchaser of health insurance. The effect would be
to decouple the provision of health insurance from employment. I will
look into the details to see if my reading of the Wall Street Journal
description of the proposal matches how it would work. It looks like
the proposal would handle the job changing person far better. However
I doubt that either it or Obama's proposal really comes to grip with
the huge costs of many life saving treatments. For example, at my age
of 69 should I expect the government/insurance company/etc. to pay 1
million dollars for a treatment of a terminal illness that would
extend my life be 10 years?
right now any employer contribution to health insurance
is not taxed since its part of the employer's cost of doing
business and neither is the employee taxed for the health
insurance or its benefits. Cobra provisions currently allow a
limited
decoupling of the insurance after an employee is separated
from his employer - What I don't like is the tax on health
care since I know that chronic cancer treatment can cost
about tensof thousands of dollars each year of treatment
- even with health insurance the patient is paying several
thousands of dollars per year. An Afghanistan or Iraqi War
veteran returning without a leg or arm will need that
prosthesis maintenance and eventually it must be
replaced after five or seven years. The current trend
is for medical care cost to go up - so when I hear that
McCain wants to tax health care benefits - that
automatically generates a negative gut reaction from
me. That kind of extra tax is going to push people over
the financial edge - if the medical bills and wall street
don't do that first.. . It's not that I am that all excited
over what Obama is advocating; it's just that
McCain's plan sounds so much more worst for the
average person than our current flawed system -
that I find myself questioning whose side is
McCain? What kind of man makes that error in
judgement?
With respect to health care reform - I'd
like to see more cost-benefit studies comparing new
drugs/therapies with older generic drugs/established
therapies. For example, what is the 2 year
survival rate for open heart surgery in Lincoln
Nebraska? How do the various drugs use
to control diabetes compare? It's not like
patients or doctors can lookup that kind
of data in Consumer Reports. Federal leadership
would be nice. I'd like Americans to enjoy the same
lower drug pricing structures as other countries.
I'd like to limit EKG tests which for the most I
think are non-essential medical test. I'd like more
medicare/medicad fraud inspectors. I would
also consider a pilot program similar to that
used by the Japanese healthcare model
which relies on having smaller neighborhood
health clinic. I'd also like to expand the
medical/healthcare program whichtargets
underserved areas in the USA. For cancer
research, molecular profiling research is a
good place to start ( chemotherapy curative
rates are linked to matching chemo agents
with a tumor cell's genetic makeup). If
cancer treatment is going to cost that much
I'd like more cancer survivors for that effort and
cost. Public health could also be advance by
providing federal funding for municipal water
treatment (sewage treatment facilities) and
putting more muscle behind cleaning up
the environment. Of course - it's not going
to happen - but atleast we could ask...