Sherry Chandler » SOS
SOS
and then there’s this from Christopher Lee (no, not that Christopher Lee) in the Washington Post:
President Bush likes to say that his health-care proposal would “level the playing field” between people who get health coverage through their job and those who buy it on their own.
But experts said yesterday that it would tilt that field toward a kind of health insurance that Bush has long favored — a high-deductible plan paired with a special tax-exempt health savings account, or HSA.
“I think it would be a big push for HSAs,” said Mark B. McClellan, a health economist and former top health-policy adviser to Bush.
While McClellan thinks that would be a good thing, other experts said it would benefit the wealthy and undercut Bush’s goal of bringing fairness to the private health insurance system.
Whenever Bush rolls out a “new initiative,” you can be sure that the plan is the same old favor-the-rich shinola and only the spin is new.
The man is a one-trick pony.
I just don’t see how the market place will ever get us all good health care anyway. I do know that, for young people like my children and for old people like my mother, the cost of health care is a great limiter. They do not have enough money to establish a health savings account.
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2 Comments
1. Terry replies at 27th January 2007, 11:43 am :
His proposal to tax health insurance benefits is dangerous. It would tax employers, as well as employees, for those benefits. If that’s not an incentive to make employers to drop coverage, I don’t know what is.
As for cutting the cost of policies, the fastest way to do that is to drop drug coverage. Yes, there are charity programs for the very low income from the big pharma companies–my daughter gets hers that way–but the income restrictions are very tight. A whole lot more people would be left out in the cold.
2. sherry replies at 27th January 2007, 11:55 am :
Right, Terry. I’ve read opinions that this is actually a stealth program to kill the employment health benefit. What I really love is when the man starts talking about how those of us who get medical benefits are encouraged to seek gold-plated health coverage (something like that). At the University of Kentucky, employees have traded salary increases for health coverage and our co-pays have gone up and up and up. It isn’t like it’s free.
Another thing where some kindness and empathy might help. I don’t see any indication, for all his declarations of salvation, that Bush has a kind bone in his body.
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