[NPInfo] McCain the Health radical?

[David Mittman]

Stephanie: Totally agree.
As a former employer, there were some advantages but IN NO WAY did  
they make up for giving healthcare to our employees. It cost us over  
$100,000 a year but we believed that we owed it to people. As the  
price has gone up, less and less employers believe they owe it to  
their people. We covered the entire family also, but that was 5-6  
years ago. As it costs more and people have less of an expectation,  
less will give coverage.
I have said this before but if I open an IT company in NY State and  
have 4 people working for me, I need $80,000 OF MY PROFIT to cover  
them. If I start the same business in Canada, I need $0.00 profit to  
cover my employees.
Knowing enough about business, which business do you think will  
succeed over the first crucial few years? Multiply that by a million  
businesses and you will see how handicapped we are in the USA.
Dave
On Aug 1, 2008, at 2:38 PM, Stephanie Walker wrote:

> I'm no financial whiz, but doesn't this mean you'll still pay  
> $18,000 for lousy health care, just pay $2500 less to the IRS so  
> your net health insurance premiums would then only total $13,500 for  
> lousy health care? That looks like the wimpiest of incremental  
> reforms I can imagine. Why doesn't any of these politicians take on  
> the big private insurance companies? (Actually, we know why not-- 
> lobbyists and campaign funding.)
>
>
> Again, I'm showing my ignorance, but I'm thinking there is a built- 
> in incentive in the present pre-tax dollar system, for employers to  
> fund their employees' health care premiums, but I can't remember how  
> that works. If that's true, if it's legislated out of existence, and  
> employers have no incentive to offer health care benefits, wouldn't  
> that just make the situation even worse? THose insured now thru  
> their jobs could lose their benefits.
>
> Stephanie Walker, FNP
>
> On Jul 31, 2008, at 10:44 PM, David Mittman wrote:
>
>> I pay close to $18,000 a year in after tax dollars for the worst  
>> health care coverage I have ever had.
>>
>> July 30, 2008, 9:06 am
>> Why McCain Is the Radical on Health
>> Posted by Jacob Goldstein
>> John McCain “is proposing the most fundamental health-care reform”  
>> of the presidential campaign, a McCain adviser argues in an op-ed  
>> in this morning’s WSJ.
>>
>> This struck us as a rather surprising argument, given that Barack  
>> Obama’s proposal includes mandating insurance for all children and  
>> creating a national public insurance program to cover those who  
>> don’t have access to insurance through their employers.
>>
>> The op-ed, John C. Goodman of the National Center for Policy  
>> Analysis, focuses on McCain’s proposed changes to the tax code,  
>> which constitute the main thrust of his health plan.
>>
>> Goodman writes that the current system is “extremely arbitrary,”  
>> because it allows employers to pay for health insurance with pre- 
>> tax dollars, but doesn’t extend that break to the growing number of  
>> people whose employers don’t provide insurance.
>>
>> McCain’s plan would get rid of the tax break for employer-sponsored  
>> insurance, and replace it with a fixed insurance tax credit —  
>> $2,500 for individuals, $5,000 for families — that people could use  
>> whether or not they get their insurance through work.
>>
>> This would create a “fairer, more efficient system with a much  
>> better chance of insuring the uninsured and controlling health  
>> costs at the same time,” Goodman argues.
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> NPInfo mailing list
>> NPInfo at nurse.net
>> http://lists.nurse.net/mailman/listinfo/npinfo
>> *****************************
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> NPInfo mailing list
> NPInfo at nurse.net
> http://lists.nurse.net/mailman/listinfo/npinfo
> *****************************