(no subject)

[ladyapple27]

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/136/story/618881.html

It's cruel to force workers who have no healthcare coverage themselves to subsidize coverage for others. As this article points out, the poor and the elderly are covered by Medicaid and Medicare. (It should be noted that the elderly are eligible for Medicare without regard for income.) The workers who pay for this through taxes on their wages frequently can't afford the very coverage that they are providing for others.

Coverage for the poor varies from state to state. In North Carolina, the Medicaid threshold for a family of 4 is $15,000 a year. In Arizona, it's $40,000.  Income limits and eligibility requirements for SCHIP also vary from state to state. Under this system, it's possible for people with lower incomes to subsidize coverage for those with higher incomes. It also dooms working people with chronic illnesses to do without care while contributing to care for others. 

It's important to note that much of the money allotted to SCHIP winds up in the hands of private insurance companies who manage the plans for the states. Insurance companies provide no healthcare themselves, yet increase administrative costs.

We spend enough money in this country providing care for special groups, generating profits for insurance companies, and covering the losses incurred by the uninsured to provide coverage for everyone. We're paying for something that we're not receiving.

Current plans by the government to pass a law that all people must buy private healthcare insurance would do nothing to provide better access to healthcare. It would merely makes us slaves to for-profit insurance companies, the same companies that are helping add to healthcare costs and denying access to care right now.

We need a national single-payer healthcare system, but are unlikely to get it because the insurance industry has become financially and politically powerful.

Comments

[brak55.livejournal.com]

I don't understand how this "everybody must buy private health insurance" is even possible. So, someone making $20,000 a year is forced to buy private insurance. Three months in they realize there's no way they can pay for it and keep the lights on and their kids fed. They default on the payment and the insurance gets canceled. What's the government going to do, come out and arrest them?

This could work if employers were forced to provide insurance, but that would completely stifle small business.

The only solution is a single payer system.

[ladyapple27.livejournal.com]

It isn't possible. Check out this blurb from Massachusetts, a state which tried to force everyone not covered by government programs to buy private insurance:

The Massachusetts Health Reform Act requires all adult Massachusetts residents to have health insurance if they can afford it. Residents without health insurance face a tax penalty.

Massachusetts residents with limited incomes may be eligible for MassHealth or Commonwealth Care. For other residents, the state has decided how much you should be able to spend on health insurance, based on your income and family size.

If there is no affordable insurance that you can get, you will not face a tax penalty if you do not have coverage. You can also request an exemption if you faced a hardship during the year.

"We sorta require you to have healthcare insurance, but we realize that it's not affordable, so..."

[eqfe.livejournal.com]

And of course in the usual socialist state of Mass tradition, the young and health are forced to get coverage to subsidise the sickly. Massecusettes poor and elderly get subsidised by its high young student population.

[yesididit.livejournal.com]

wonder how the government would force me to get insurance since i've been deemed uninsurable due to pre-existing conditions and my 18 months of cobra ran out last year.

[eqfe.livejournal.com]

I've long thought that the biggest tragedy in this country is that the working poor don't have medical coverage.
Runner-up is that half the total cost of medical care in this country annually is spent on the last six months of peoples lives.