Experts See Peril in Bush Health Proposal - by Robert Pear for NYTIMES

[applegrove]

Experts See Peril in Bush Health Proposal

By ROBERT PEAR
The New York Times
Published: January 28, 2007

WASHINGTON, Jan. 27 — "With his proposal to uproot a tax break that has been in place for more than 60 years, President Bush has touched off an impassioned debate over the future of the employer-based system that provides health insurance to more than half of all Americans.

“Changing the tax code is a vital and necessary step to making health care affordable for more Americans,” Mr. Bush said in his State of the Union address this week.

Mr. Bush said his proposal would eliminate a bias in the tax code that strongly favored insurance provided by employers over coverage bought by individuals and families outside the workplace.

Paul Fronstin, director of health research at the Employee Benefit Research Institute, a nonpartisan organization, said: “The president’s proposal would mean the end of employer-based benefits as we know them. It gives employers a way out of providing the benefits because their employees could get the same tax break on their own.”

...............SNIP"

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/us/28health.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ei=5094&en=97f3dc4b3af34e5e&hp&ex=1169960400&partner=homepage

[acmavm]

1. Hell yeah it give the employers a way out of offering benefits. What do

people think the point of this whole scheme is? Something to benefit the American worker??????????

[applegrove]

2. It is always wedges with the * WH. Trying to wedge employers away

from liking universal health care.

[LongTomH]

3. Did you catch this point

Since Mr. Bush took office in 2001, the number of people without insurance has increased by more than 5 million, to 46.6 million, according to the Census Bureau. Administration officials said they hoped to reverse that trend by helping states that offered basic private insurance policies to their residents. To pay for such help, the administration would take federal money from hospitals that serve large numbers of poor people.

For the ten-thousandth time, just what is it that conservatives have against poor people?

[applegrove]

4. What do they have against poor people? Why they want to be Mexico with

1/3 of the population very rich and the rest poor. That is where the USA is headed. Distribution of wealth is closer to Russia (democracy for 15 years) and Mexico (2/3 of the population really poor) than to any "Western" nation. Just disgusting.

[Warpy]

5. The problem is that 90% of employers are

psychopathic scumbags who would only drop insurance coverage for their employees without giving them a raise equal to the value of the dropped benefit.

In other words, somebody making $15,000/year and getting $10,000 in insurance benefits would be expected to pay 2/3 of his income to provide those benefits to himself. Since he pays little income tax, his tax break would add up to exactly nothing.

This makes a great deal of sense to stingy rich people, I guess.

[applegrove]

6. Yup. It is an attempt to stop the move to universal health care which employers

may have supported because it gets them off the hook. Corporations that only have a bottom line..will follow suit and like this. They put no thought into anything other than how big their bonuses will be..and short term fiscal year thinking - for the most part.

[Warren Stupidity]

7. Ummm, oh heck I'm on the far left, but

"90% of employers are psychopathic scumbags" is silly. 90% of employers are just struggling to stay in business. Heck, 95% are just struggling to stay in business. Yes of course the employees will see none of the savings from dropping healthcare, as we are in a government directed race to the bottom, so that same 95% will be forced into that decision, just like they are being forced to drop health insurance benefits right now without Dumbass doing anything new to make it worse.

As for junior's shitty plan, his idea is that people at the bottom of the income scale would get truly crappy health insurance for like 3,000/yr or so, or 'only' 20% of their gross income. Then when they actually get sick they will remain unable to afford real care, and will continue to get more seriously ill more frequently as they will also be unable to afford preventative care. In other words nothing will change other than the rent-extraction from us working stiffs to Big Healthco for health insurance will continue to increase at a ridiculous rate, and the bipartisan corporate greedhead strategy to deflect universal single payer health insurance with romneycare will have been advanced.

[applegrove]

8. Corporations act psychopathic because they don't have conscience

in any way built into their actions. For the Ceo today it is all about the bottom line and getting bonuses for any profit they muster. That is how they are psychopathic. They don't have an inner life built into their organizations. And unless the leadership is there..they will act out in a cold, cold way... supporting things like war if it helps them get ridiculously high remuneration. Some corporations are more human and have consciences. But they still have to fight against that pull of the bottom line.

[Warren Stupidity]

9. And again 95% are just trying to keep from going under.

Very few corporations have any real decisions to make with respect to allocation of profits as they have very little if any profits to allocate. Less than 20% of all corporations in the US have revenue of over $1,000,000, let alone profits. Considering all forms of business entities, only 4.5% have revenues of over $1,000,000.
http://www.bizstats.com/bizsizes98.htm

You may think I am nit-picking, and perhaps I am. But my point is that it is our public policy from our government that has created the healthcare crisis in this country, not corporate greed. 60 years of relying on the enlightened (or union coerced or a mixture of both) policies of a few very large corporations to provide health insurance benefits has led us directly to where we are today, and in the meantime has created a huge corrupt health industry complex that has entangled itself with government and seeks to preserve the franchise it has gained at any cost. Attacking corporations for being unable to afford to pay for private health insurance is attacking the wrong target.

[applegrove]

10. My point is that they are being wedged. For sure the present system doesn't

work. Will corporations see this Bush proposal as a way out of their health care responsibilities at the expense of a chance at national health care (which is more productive for the corporations as they are out of the system and end up with healthier employees). Will they let themselves be wedged so?

We shall have to see.