Health insurance higher than taxes

[sandnsea]

An LTTE I was just reading pointed that out. The writer couldn't get a recommended physical paid for, even though between him and his employer, his health insurance is $13,000 a year; more than his income taxes. 65% of Americans have private insurance, most of their premiums are higher than their taxes.

Is your insurance premium, or the premium your employer pays, higher than your income taxes?

Would that approach make people stop and think about how much they're paying in comparison to what they're getting for their money?

[bluestateguy]

1. National Health care=Tax cut

Sure, we'd all have to pay more in Medicare taxes (I say just make Medicare open to everyone), but you'd be able to do away with private insurance premiums that go up, up and up every year.

[The_Casual_Observer]

2. You don't get it, it's the free market at work.

Someday competition will drive down the cost of medical treatment, it's the way it works.

[Warpy]

3. I have a chronic illness that's a real lulu, so I've been unable

to get insurance since 1987. I am a nurse who has only been able to find agency and per diem work because no one will hire me on staff because I might drive up their insurance premiums.

Blue Cross is the only outfit in my area that would cover me, and it would cover only 80% of the cost of any catastrophic illness at a monthly premium that would exceed my mortgage, my income taxes, and my utilities.

Since I've felt that my health is improved more by having a roof over my head than by paying money to an insurance company, I've gone without insurance for nearly 19 years.

It sucks.

I'm so sick of being the canary in the coalmine, a living caution for anyone who lives over the age of 50 and starts accumulating chronic illnesses and realizes there is a huge gap between being healthy enough to qualify for health insurance and the start of Medicare.

When Al Gore stupidly took universal healthcare out of his campaign platform, he lost my vote then and there. Any candidate who doesn't take this horror show called the US healthcare system seriously will lose my vote.

The US healthcare system maximixes inefficiency, waste, redundancy of services, and utter cruelty. Any other system would be an improvement.

[demosincebirth]

4. I'm sorry for your illness.

Can I ask you who you voted for in 2000

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Warpy]

10. Competition? Horseshit!

Haven't you been watching what mergers have done to all this competition that was supposed to happen?

Haven't you seen the duplication of expensive technologies by competing plans in bigger markets driving up costs?

Treating illness like a consumer decision is what got us into this mess. We need to get healthcare OUT of the for profit marketplace to fix it.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

12. "Competition" allows the insurance companies to keep an eye on each other

and raise premiums the same amount. I looked at all the options open to me when I moved to Minnesota, and the only reason I chose the plan I did was that it covers prescription drugs at $12 per bottle (although AFTER I meet the $1000 deductible.) There wasn't enough difference in the premiums or the benefits to sway me one way or the other.

[SpaceCatMeetsMars]

27. In my state there is no competition and no hope for any

The HMOs are only interested in insuring big groups like corporations. We have mostly self-employed people and small businesses here, the kind of people that actually hire other people. But hardly anyone can offer health insurance, the premiums are too high. My husband and I are self-employed and are actually considering moving to another state to try to find cheaper health insurance. We are just the type of people this state doesn't want to lose, relatively young small business people.

I look at what we pay for health insurance and see that this could go to retirement savings, but it's nothing but a big rip-off.

[sandnsea]

15. We just ran into that

I was looking at trying to get some insurance, before we hit that magical 50 years old. My husband has a hernia, he's had it for years. Guess what. Declined. So I know what you mean, although I haven't had health insurance in 20 years either. We just have never been able to afford it. But I'd never not vote for a Democrat over their health insurance because they never hurt the low income quite as horrifically as Republicans do. You can stand in the corner and scream single payer with Ralph Nader until the day you and I die and we'd still have zero improvement in health care because demanding the impossible leaves you with the status quo, or worse. It's like a 5 year old demanding dessert, while refusing the path to dessert, which is eating your boring old dinner.

[enough]

6. Self-employed for 30 years (both me and spouse)

Our health insurance is WAY higher than our income taxes. Also higher than our property taxes (for school district and county/local government). Not higher if you add all the taxes together.

[sandnsea]

14. It would be for me too

If I could even afford the health insurance in the first place!

[Nomen Tuum]

7. Why we will never have National Health Insurance

I have a 62 year old sister, brittle diabetic, hypertensive, no health insurance and her hubby's income is too high for Medicaid. Merely mention "National Health Insurance" and she goes into a rage about how people wait 6 months in Canada to be treated for a cold. Nothing I say can convince her...

[sandnsea]

17. Subsidized health insurance

Same choice of plans the federal employees buy into, including congress and the president. Just on a sliding fee scale. What does she say about that?

[Nomen Tuum]

18. My sister wants NO government insurance

Her stock answer is that she wants NO government bureaucrat rationing health care. I remind her now that her health care IS rationed by what money she has. She will not listen.

[sandnsea]

20. Bush supports health clinics

A clinic in every county. How does she feel about that? That's rationed government health care. Don't understand why Republicans support that and not health insurance to go to any doctor they want.

[Nomen Tuum]

23. She's brainwashed by the media

Look at the so-called main$tream media and see how they destroyed Hillary's health care proposal. The New York Times led the charge against Hillary. The mainstream churches also rallied against it. Sadly my sister is one of those who does not care about it, since she is convinced that the rapture is coming soon and Jesus will take her away...

[drm604]

19. This is what we're up against.

These are the people we have to convince. We need to find a way to educate them and convince them that they're being fed misinformation by insurance companies that have a stake in the current system. I don't know how to convince your sister but maybe some good sources of info would help. Here's a couple of good websites:

http://www.grahamazon.com/sp/whatissinglepayer.php

http://www.pnhp.org/facts/singlepayer_faq.php?page=all

[lavenderdiva]

21. my mother in law says the EXACT same thing.

Of course, its NOT true, but she insists on repeating it anyway.

[Kansas Wyatt]

8. Citizens of other industrialized countries get national health care

Americans get to outspend the entire rest of the world combined on defense spending.

Americans have been getting screwed by 'The Powers That Be' for a long time, by a regressive bait and switch racket.

[usregimechange]

9. Yes, I like this frame. May be a national seller.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

11. Yes, that's almost true for me

My income tax (exclusive of estimated tax, which is what we self-employed people pay in lieu of SS taxes) is only slightly larger than my health insurance payments, perhaps less if you count the thousand dollar deductible and the 20% copays after meeting the deductible. I have to pay $4000 out of pocket (premiums and deductible) before getting ANY benefits.

[sandnsea]

16. Plans I've seen

Are calling for at least a $300 premium with a $5000 deductible. I can get $1,000 deductible with a $500 premium. That's for me and my husband. We don't use that much medical in a year, and the last damned thing I want to do is go to the doctor to run up deductibles to bring my taxes down. OTOH, if one of us gets sick, we're screwed. But I have an inkling we'd be screwed with the 20% anyway, so what the hell is the point. It's insane.

[fed-up]

13. Insurance??? What insurance??? I had to fend for myself when I got sick

with food allergies. I learned a lot about alternative treatment and healthy eating.

Neck/back problems I just deal with and live in pain.

I tried getting insurance about 7 years ago when I started having problems (undisclosed) but Blue Cross wanted to know about my "migraine" that I had called a clinic about. They also wanted me to take another liver test at a cost of $400 (had already forked out $80 or so bucks for first test) when they read in my charts that I was HBV positive which was really a typographical error and should have read EBV positive-Epstein Barr.

I want NATIONAL HEALTH CARE NOW in case something catostrophic happens.

[CAG]

22. the marketplace will solve this, the marketplace will solve this, the mark

etplace will solve this, the marketplace will solve this..


Say this 10,000 times in your head. Its what the politicians have been telling us for the last two decades. If they say it so many times, it has to be true.

5-15% annual health care cost growth (8% this past year; described to me as "moderate growth"; how this persistent growth 3-5X that of inflation is moderate, I don't know).
20% drug company profit margins.
A third of the money you and your health plan pay to the drug companies goes into advertisements, used-car salespersons in suits (and short skirts for the young blonde salesladies), and physician payola (I've got a stack of "20-minute surveys" that are on my desk that come unsolicited to me offering me $50-200 for a bit of my time, usually by some front-marketing firms paid by the drug companies - I don't take these bribes, though).

[Nomen Tuum]

24. That's because they live in a LASSEIZ FAIRYLAND

Our Ruling Class lives in a fantasyland called LASSEIZ FAIRYLAND where everything can be solved by the free market. This is the mantra you hear from them and they repeat it until they get screwed by the market and are kicked out of the ruling elite.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

28. GREAT PHRASE!

"Laissez Fairyland!"

:rofl:

[XanaDUer]

25. No, thank god...

I finally got a job with great bennies, comprehensive that costs me about $42/month.

I did have to buy my own crappy insurance before, and it sucked and was almost $500/bi-monthly...

[sandnsea]

29. What's your employer share?

And is the employer share more than your taxes? More than their taxes?

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

26. Every American is in a personal lottery whether they know it or not

It is the American National Health lottery. Pray that you are never a winner (term used sarcastically )and that your number is never drawn from the pot. Because the day that you or a family member gets a serious, catastrophic illness is the day you can kiss goodbye any financial security that you once had and also look forward to a possible unrecoverable personal bankruptcy due to medical bills. Even when you HAVE insurance, one major catastrophic illness can have you hit lifetime limits a heck of a lot quicker than you might think. I had an acquaintance who has breast cancer enlighten me to this point.

So, how lucky do you feel?