Well the one thing I would like about McCain's plan is multi worker families would get some benefit. Right now most corporations pocket that $9000 dollars if the employee elects to get health insurance through some other means (say a spouse). Mine is actually nice in that it gives me a fraction of that back. Additionally my company's premiums suck because we have had a lot of sick people. I am subsidizing Fred's Wife's Kidney Transplant because I happen to work at the same office. That doesn't make a lot of sense. In effect it already gives a boost to large companies with less deviation in individual health
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I think the risk to the consumer is too big. Health care is just too complicated and the model of insurance is to make money and not have to pay out if at all possible. I also suspect that every person will end up having to sign a binding arbitration agreement with the insurance company and then you can forget about health care, it's just going to be extortion.
As for the pocketing of $9000 by the company if you elect to take your health care through your wife, it's a benefit just like a 401(k) match. If you choose not to take it, then that's your choice, why should the company compensate your for that? They won't get the tax benefit of investing that money in your health, which is large part of the reason they give it to you. (At least according to the guy who wrote the above listed article.)
I read it as the tax benefit they got was being able to pay you money tax free so it was of greater value to the employee. Normally a $10K raise to me is only $5K due to taxes. But the real value of $10K health care is actually $10K without any governmental 'meddling'. So I certainly am choosing not to take the benefit but it theoretically wouldn't cost them anything extra to give me the $10K as cash even if it were taxable.
HOWEVER they do give me money and it is not taxable as it is listed as health care reimbursement on my paystub. So it sounds like we already have McCain's plan in place if we wanted to have it.
I agree that the current model of the healthy at a company subsidizing the ill is unfair to the healthy. However, as one of the unhealthy, there's no way I could afford to live a relatively-healthy life without my current medical coverage.
I think medical technology has become a double-edged sword. Science has made it possible for more people to live longer, but at the cost of a lot of medical interventions to keep the person living that life. And I say that knowing full well I am someone who has benefited from medical technology. Had I been born 100 years earlier, I wouldn't have made it past age 6 (when I first started having life-threatening asthma attacks). As a result, I wouldn't have lived as long as I have now to have developed the additional medical conditions I have and wouldn't have become a burden to the medical system.
I'm starting to think that "personal responsibility" == "more ways to profit for companies" This is true, but there's a few more links in the chain. If you say this outright to a staunch Republican, they will bristle... but articulating the full chain shows where the bias creeps in
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As for the pocketing of $9000 by the company if you elect to take your health care through your wife, it's a benefit just like a 401(k) match. If you choose not to take it, then that's your choice, why should the company compensate your for that? They won't get the tax benefit of investing that money in your health, which is large part of the reason they give it to you. (At least according to the guy who wrote the above listed article.)
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HOWEVER they do give me money and it is not taxable as it is listed as health care reimbursement on my paystub. So it sounds like we already have McCain's plan in place if we wanted to have it.
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I think medical technology has become a double-edged sword. Science has made it possible for more people to live longer, but at the cost of a lot of medical interventions to keep the person living that life. And I say that knowing full well I am someone who has benefited from medical technology. Had I been born 100 years earlier, I wouldn't have made it past age 6 (when I first started having life-threatening asthma attacks). As a result, I wouldn't have lived as long as I have now to have developed the additional medical conditions I have and wouldn't have become a burden to the medical system.
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This is true, but there's a few more links in the chain. If you say this outright to a staunch Republican, they will bristle... but articulating the full chain shows where the bias creeps in ( ... )
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