Syndicate and Hague

I wanted to open this by saying that there are so many things I don’t understand about the people crying “socialism” in regards to having public health care, but that isn’t entirely true. I intellectually understand a lot of the factors leading them to that reaction. Some of it is simply that they have good insurance through their employers and don’t want to possibly wait another day to get seen by a doctor so that we can all be covered. It’s a naive way to think in this economy when a person could lose his/her job and be without insurance or with insurance at staggering COBRA premiums.

I could go into the racial undertones of the anti-health care reform language (directed both at Obama, and at the “others” who may take away “our” health insurance/doctors), but what I want to focus on is why public health care is good for entrepreneurs - and, by extension, for capitalism.

If our leaders are really concerned with the needs of small businesses and individual start-ups of new businesses as they say they are, their resistance to publicly run health care is puzzling. Needing to maintain a relationship with a specific employer in order to have health insurance actually deters people from striking out on their own and becoming innovators.

I could write up some scenarios for you, but you should already know them. Someone with a child with chronic health conditions cannot stop working at a job with great benefits just because they “have a great idea for a business” because no individual plan would provide the level of care the group employee plan does (nor would the individual plan probably cover the child, what with the child’s pre-existing conditions and all).

You could have Crone’s, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, severe mental illness, whatever - and you are either lucky enough to be trapped with an employer who offers benefits that keep your illness from driving you into bankruptcy, or you get sick. And sickness can be disastrous.

So what are you going to do? Forget yourself, even - if you have people relying on you who absolutely need good medical care are you going to strike out on your own with that new business idea or are you going to stay at your job (hoping benefits don’t get cut more, hoping you don’t get laid off)? In my experience, people with great ideas stay at their jobs because when faced with the kinds of medical bills they would be paying without it, they simply can’t do anything else.

If you’re a capitalist who thinks big business is the only way to go, then this is a pretty good set up. However, no politician likes to go on about how much they looove big business. They’re always talking about “the little guy.” American ingenuity and exceptionalism blah blah blah. But they don’t really mean it. Our fates are tied to the whims of behemoths. Social programs support us so that we have a safety net. As anyone who has ever gone from a dangerous situation to a safe one knows, safety brings freedom. When you’re not in reactive mode, you can plan and dream and innovate.

It’s hard for me to untangle this argument from morality though. At its root, I think it’s immoral for us as a society to not leverage our power as a community to support and buffer each other so that we can all do better.

(A side note to the “SOCIALIST/COMMUNIST” screamers: please read Marx. It is so embarrassing when you use the term “socialist/communist” in place of “i don’t even want to hear what you say” because, due to the context in which you are using it, it is plain that you don’t actually have full knowledge of the tenets of that philosophy.)

Way back during the Clinton impeachment hearings (over his blow job), my (dearly missed) grandmother and I were talking about the state of politics in this country. She said “If politics when your grandfather was alive was like politics now, I never would have allowed him to run for anything.”

What she meant, of course, was that character assassination was steadily growing as the focus of political battles. It didn’t matter how much damage it did to his family at the time, but if all the Republicans could distract us with about Clinton was that he got a blow job, then that was going to take precedence over policy and legislation.

I can’t imagine what her impression of the politics of today would be.

Here is the situation we’re in: a small minority of very loud Americans will do or say anything to bring down our president. I’d say that they get media play because the media gets a lot of airtime out of the Battle of Left Vs. Right, but I don’t know about that. Back in 2003, when the global Iraq war protest was staged, somewhere between 100,000-400,000 people flooded the streets of New York (the figure depends on the source), and between 6-10 million people protested that day in February in different cities all over the world. We weren’t covered with nearly the same seriousness as the town hall screamers are.

The anti-health care reform people; the birthers; the right wingers in general get a few dozen people at a rally - maybe even a hundred or two at a protest - and this is a movement? Yes, they’re loud and very good at parroting Fox’s talking points, but their numbers are hardly representative of massive public sentiment.

The problem is that every time their screaming town halls are reported on, it lends them credibility. Just like every time the media even asks questions like “should the president’s message to schoolkids be allowed in the classroom?” gives that insanity credibility.

(A sidebar on that: are you people fucking kidding me?????!!! He’s the president. George Bush made me want to gouge my ear drums out every time I heard him talk, but if he wanted to get on TV and tell the kids to study hard and have a good school year, I wouldn’t have batted an eye. And neither did my parents back when Reagan and HW broadcast messages to schoolkids. Way to raise your kids to have respect for this country.)

I just don’t understand why the media is legitimizing the ideas that are coming out of the right wing machine. It’s not like having “two sides” of an issue=critical analysis of an issue. There are things called facts, and when one of the two sides has an argument that consists of “socialism,” “death panels,” and “Hitler,” they are not a “side” of an argument, they do not have an argument.

To be clear, I have no problem engaging in a debate with someone who wants engage in an actual discussion of the pros/cons of various types of health care reform. However, I have found that many right wing-identified people begin an argument with me by calling me a socialist. That’s not an argument, that’s invective and hyperbole and has no place in a debate/discussion.

In fact, I want to extend Godwin’s law to the “Socialist” moniker. If you have to say “Socialist!” or “Socialism!” in order to win an argument, you automatically lose. It’s like sinking the 8 ball. You say “socialist” to win an argument, you fail.

Man, I really miss talking current events with my grandma, but part of me is glad she didn’t live to see this insanity.

I’m going to make this simple. I’ve read a lot of analysis and details and wrote about this before and I am going to distill what I have gleaned from sources as varied as the NY Times, the Economist, the Kaiser Foundation and (gag) the Heritage Foundation about what John McCain proposes to do to your employer-based health care.

• The amount your employer pays into your health care plan will be taxed. This means you will pay a higher income tax (as your income will be higher) and your employer will have to pay additional taxes on your income (as your income will be higher).
• The $5,000 “tax credit” that McCain says offsets this tax will not go to people who continue to have employer-based coverage. The “tax credit” will go only towards privately-purchased (crappy) coverage you buy on the market. From what I have read, it only goes to the insurance company, not to you.
• On average, employers put in over $10,000 a year towards their employees’ family health care plans. So if you’re making $50,000 now, you will be taxed on $60,000.

There you are. Those are your talking points.

If you’re interested in why McCain wants to do this and how it reflects his world views, you can read my other post on Obama vs McCain on health care. I can also sum up below.

McCain wants to privatize health care just like he wants to privatize social security. This is a way to do it. Many younger workers will drop out of the employer-based insurance pools because they either don’t need/don’t think they need the level of coverage that it affords. Instead, they will buy low fee, huge deductible private insurance. As the low risk population leaves the insurance pool, employer-based insurance pools will be increasingly high risk (older/sicker) and premiums will go up. The hope is that premiums will go up to the point where employers drop insurance altogether and everyone is forced onto the free market.

It’s a losing scenario in the long run. It’s a losing scenario in the short run, too.

This is so dire, folks. I really hope that anyone who is remotely considering voting for McCain or not voting at all hears this one, because if there is anything at all that will kill your budget, here you are.

I’m going to throw a lot of sources at you, because I want you to see that this isn’t some far out rant from the Huffington Post. This is real.

John McCain wants to destroy employer-based health benefits. Is destroy too severe of a term? I don’t think so. Part of McCain’s plan is to tax you for the amount your employer contributes to your health care benefits as if it were income. More on that after this public service moment.

First, you need to see through the carefully constructed terminology he uses on his website:

John McCain Believes The Key To Health Care Reform Is To Restore Control To The Patients Themselves. We want a system of health care in which everyone can afford and acquire the treatment and preventative care they need. Health care should be available to all and not limited by where you work or how much you make. Families should be in charge of their health care dollars and have more control over care…An important part of his plan is to use competition to improve the quality of health insurance with greater variety to match people’s needs, lower prices, and portability…While still having the option of employer-based coverage, every family will receive a direct refundable tax credit - effectively cash - of $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families to offset the cost of insurance. Families will be able to choose the insurance provider that suits them best and the money would be sent directly to the insurance provider.

What this means: this means that you are on your own. Things like “restoring control to the patients” and “families should be in charge of their health care dollars and have more control over care” sound really nice. What they mean is that you are on your own. Have you ever tried to afford insurance on your own or worked for a small business whose coverage was minimal? I have. Cheap health insurance comes with ungodly deductibles before they even begin to cover doctor visits; caps on prescription drug spending; and bureaucratic nightmares if you need something actually covered. Small business’s insurance policies have similar problems.

The problem is, people often don’t notice these things until they get sick. Or in an accident.

The basic concept behind health insurance is one that is anathema to conservatives like Phil Gramm and John McCain - in theory, everyone pays into a system that disproportionately benefits those who need it most. It’s essentially making the burden of risk and the profit of benefit public. I would argue that conservative philosophy is exactly the opposite - they prefer privatizing profit and have no problem lobbying for the public carrying the burden of risk. This is where health care would go under McCain. Private profit, public risk. Keep repeating that. Private profit, public risk.

So back to the employer benefit and taxation issue. Highlighted in today’s Huffington Post is what is rarely spoken. I’ll quote:

McCain intends to tax workers for the value of health insurance that they receive from their employers. Really. It’s not included in the description of his plan on his web site. It is, however, on the site of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a non-profit organization that specializes in health policy…It says McCain would “reform the tax code to eliminate the exclusion of the value of health insurance plans offered by employers from workers’ taxable income.”

Gerard breaks it down in numbers: “The value of the typical plan provided by an employer to a family is $12,106, of which the employer pays $8,824, and the worker pays the remaining $3,282. The median household income is $44,389, which places most American families in the 15 percent income tax bracket. McCain wants to add the employer’s cost — an additional $8,824 — to that middle class family’s income, then tax it. The hit to the average family is 15 percent of the McCain-added income — $1,323 more in income taxes. And since the McCain tax credits are for privately purchased health care ONLY and do not extend to employer-paid benefits, you are literally losing at least $1,323 per year. I just ran the numbers for myself and - as a single person with no dependents, which means less costly health care - I would be looking at a $1300 increase myself.

Know what I don’t have? $1300. It is ridiculous for workers with benefits to be pressured to buy substandard insurance on the market.

Want to read more? I hope you’re outraged. I hope you know where you have over a thousand dollars to cut from your annual budget. Tell people about this. McCain Health Plan Could Mean Higher Tax (NY Times) The Tax Increase McCain Doesn’t Want to Talk About(Washington Monthly) McCain’s Health Care Proposal Will Increase Costs and Reduce Benefits (AFL-CIO) McCain’s $5,000 Promise (FactCheck.org) McCain’s Health-Care Proposal (Businessweek)

What I wish I could give you is more focused discussion of Obama’s health care proposal. Part of the problem is that the majority of time the news spent discussing any of Obama’s proposals/issues were in contention with Clinton. Since then, the news really couldn’t care less about his policy ideas. I’ll give you some info from his website and then add a couple of highlights. God he has so much more specificity on his site than McCain does. It’s beautiful.

I really encourage you to review Obama’s site that I linked to above. The plan is so detailed that I have a hard time summarizing it. But this is my attempt.

The goal is to have a publicly backed health care system. Key elements include guaranteed eligibility, benefits on par with the plan members of Congress have, affordability, subsidies for individuals in need, and accountability on the part of insurance companies. The National Health Insurance Exchange concept is to also allow individuals who want to purchase a private plan - it will act as a watchdog group and create rules/standards (accountability!) for private insurances. They would be required to issue everyone a policy and charge rates that aren’t dependent on health status. Employers must make a contribution, except for small business who can also receive a tax credit to help reduce their health care costs. Mandatory coverage of children. Ensuring Medicaid and SCHIP. Providing a safety net for the cost of catastrophic illnesses for employers/employees IF such savings are used to reduce the cost of workers’ premiums.

You guys, it just keeps going. Go to the site. He addresses women’s issues, civil rights issues in health care, disability/mental illness, technology research, prescription drug companies AND ON AND ON.

This is the man to vote for. He’s got the ideas, he’s got the plan, he needs the platform.

It’s not the story that grabbed me. The Star Tribune’s reporting has gone down the tubes along with their disappearing staff, but they did the semi-annual “boy, young people don’t have insurance a lot of the time and that sucks!’ piece. It’s here if you want to read it.

The thing that always does it is the damned comments. I don’t even know why I read them.

The sense of entitlement, which the commenters tend to reproach the young folks for, is actually squarely placed on their own shoulders. Saying “I didn’t have it, so I don’t know what you’re whining about,” or, worse, “they need to learn to budget for medical costs” makes my head spin. First off, just because the older of us had things a little harder (I think, for the record, that we sometimes invent how hard things were, but I digress) doesn’t mean that we should wish difficulty on those who follow us.

But secondly, and more importantly, when we talk about lacking insurance and the problems that causes, we’re talking about not having something that is the difference between financial solvency and disaster. You can’t budget for a crisis. You can’t budget for cancer treatments or a heart attack or a car accident.

But let’s get even more simplistic. The whole idea that has been pushed forward of late–of these Healthcare Savings Accounts (where you don’t have insurance, but “save” money that you use and bank up if you don’t use it) is an entirely wrong-headed way to look at public health.

If you look at healthcare as an individual choice of budgeting and responsibility, you’re missing the point. If Person A and Person B each have strep throat and Person A has healthcare and Person B does not, what exactly do you expect to happen?

Person A is going to go to the doctor, get incredibly low cost medication, and get over it.

Person B may go to the doctor, but they may not. If they don’t, Person B can infect Persons C, D, E, F, and G before they decide it’s time to spend the $100 or so on a doctor’s visit. Not even taking into consideration the possibility that there might be complications or secondary problems from the initial infection, Person B just cost our healthcare system money by infecting 5 people who otherwise wouldn’t have been infected.

When I first moved back to NYC as one of those young college grads with no NY health insurance and no full-time job with benefits, I got an ear infection. Because it didn’t hurt too much–just itched and popped, I mean, I knew I had an ear infection–I decided it would probably just go away. This went on for a few weeks. Then one day at work, I moved my jaw and had the most horrible pain in my ear. It was so bad I started to cry.

I finally decided that it was financially time–I’d been putting it off because I had no money and no full-time work–and went into the doctor’s office. I had to take the afternoon off work because the pain was so bad and thankfully got into see the doctor that afternoon.

He looked in my ear and found a severe and grotesque infection in my ear. Ever since then, whenever my allergies act up or I get a cold, there’s about a 30% chance I’m going to get an ear infection. Which means a trip to my doctor. Which means antibiotics. Because the insurance that I had was one with a high deductible, you had to weigh whether or not going to the doctor was worth the $100+ dollars you would inevitably spend.

Having good insurance now, I wouldn’t give it a second thought. I’d just go in. And you know what? Had I had the insurance I have now back then, I would have gone in and saved myself and my insurance companies the money from repeated trips to the doctor for this stupid, stupid ear that gets infected at the drop of a hat.

Prevention/immediate care is the most important part of healthcare. We still just don’t get it. And we’re wasting money on strep throats that end up in the ER and infections that start out simple, but wind up complicated. Wake up. It’s in our financial and moral best interests to find a way to cover everyone.