Is Health Care Plan Dead?

Will current health care legislation die a gruesome agonizing death or will a bastardized version of the Senate bill finally be pushed through appropriations by some congressional chicanery later this year?

I would be happy to see the current monstrosity scrapped entirely and some real change explored that would help Americans rather than push some Progressive agenda that would eventually bankrupt this nation.

There are some good ideas out there - see Five Health Care Reform Solutions That Make Sense.

Summary (for my benefit)

1. Sell Insurance Across State Lines - stimulates economy without spending a dime of federal money
2. Let individuals purchase health insurance with pre-tax dollars - businesses do this already (no federal money needed)
3. Encourage Health Care Savings Accounts (HSAs) - would encourage younger/healthier Americans to buy insurance (no federal money needed)
4. Tort reform - end abusive medical litigation (no federal money needed)
5. Cover the uninsured - system of tax credits can help the uninsured purchase coverage (will cost about $80 billion a year, but a boat load of money cheaper than current congressional bills and would not require cutting Medicare for seniors and disabled).

I would add one more -

1. Allow single adults to remain covered under their parents policies until age 25. This could be paid by the insured individual and would be significantly lower in cost than buying an individual policy.

To rethink health care reform we must:

- Scrap the current legislation.
- Enact the five (6) reforms listed above.
- Pass each reform separately, one bill every four months.
- Limit each bill to 50 pages.
- Let each bill pass or fail on its own merits—no pork, no pay-offs.
- Make final language available to the public for at least 7 days prior to voting.

My Health Care Plan

Eliminate the Social Security payroll tax cap that is currently $106,800 (limit benefits cap instead).

Allow crossing of state lines for purchasing of insurance plans.

Search out states with best medical tort reform plans to create national model.

Encourage individual employees assumption of buying own health care insurance by:

• taxing employment provided health care benefits
• allow individuals to purchase health insurance across state lines
• increase tax deductions for actual health care costs not covered by insurance or Medicare
• prohibit pre-existing condition denials of insurance coverage
• prohibit $2 million ceiling caps of lifetime coverage
• allow low interest rate loans of medical costs not covered by insurance or Medicare.

Create a pool of revenue to pay for uninsured from:

• elimination of SS payroll cap,
  
• taxing of employee health care benefits, and
  
• small tax levied on insurance company profits.

No one gets out of here alive

Over 400 million people live in the United States and 90% of them are insured. I find that remarkable! Only 10% of US inhabitants are without health insurance, but does that mean that they are without health care should they require it?

We hear in the media of dramatic instances when someone is turned away from emergency rooms due to their inability to pay. Lack of treatment makes news, it's not the standard of practice. Serious illnesses or injuries will be treated by hospitals whether you are insured or not.

The uninsured are less likely to receive preventative care, such as blood pressure or cholesterol screening, prenatal care, mamograms, etc. There are free or very inexpensive services that provide this care, but not everyone who needs them line up to use them or even knows about them.

I also wonder how many of the 10% uninsured are sick at any one time - 2%, 5%, which would translate into 800,000 or 2 million people? There are approximately 6,000 registered hospitals and over 25,000 health clinics of various types in the US. Could these facilities take on 25 to 100 uninsured patients on a daily basis with assistance from an as yet to be determined public/private funding source or are they already doing this and passing on the cost to the insured?

The print and media coverage of health care reform is making my head spin. What I'm hearing doesn't seem to be about the issue of providing health care to the small minority of people who can't afford to pay for insurance. If that were the issue, then I think it would be a manageable problem.

There seems to be something at work here that is unrelated to providing health care to needy people. If Congress would address themselves to that issue only, perhaps solutions could be reached.

Douthat, NY Times columnist, says that if, "health care reform perishes, senior citizens will have done it in." Further blame is being dumped on the health insurers and the Republican Party for scaring people into public protests.

The truth is that government programs once begun always seem to outgrow their initial mandate. Social Security and Medicare were created to help those who were unable or failed to provide for themselves. These programs are on the verge of bankruptcy.

We have to be very careful that whatever health reforms we put into place won't add to this colossal debt. Why is this so difficult to understand?