Health care, the hidden tax.

[flamin lib]

We have GOT to reframe the health care debate. John Edwards is on record saying that it will be necessary to raise taxes to pay for Universal Care. We have got to rephrase the debate because we are paying for Universal Health care now and not getting it. Health care is a hidden tax on everything we buy and every service we pay for.

General Motors estimates that between $1-2,000 per car is health care cost. Every company that provides health care to its employees passes that cost on to its customers. Every can of green beans in the grocery store has the health care of the producer, the processor, the truck driver who delivered it and the store employees built into it.

By federal law all emergencies must be treated regardless of ability to pay. Emergency room care is estimated at six times the cost of a regular doctor’s visit. Because the indigent are forced to use emergency rooms as primary medical care they wait until their condition deteriorates to justify treatment. Indigent emergency room care is a double whammy; the treatment is more expensive and the disease is much more advanced. That cost is passed on to paying patients and their insurance companies. Many hospitals write off as much as 30% of invoices as un-collectable. Every user of medical care pays that surcharge.

We are all paying a health care tax now, it’s just hidden from us.

[ComerPerro]

1. Another way to frame it, for the selfish RWers who "don't want to pay for others"

Lets say you have a full time job, decent pay but not great, and you are offered health insurance. Even the cheapest plans for only one person can cost at least $200 a month. And its taken out before taxes. So its basically a tax already.

And, even better, at any time, if your health insurance carrier wants to drop you because they deem you uninsurable, or if you have treatment that they refuse to pay for, they have that right to do so. So in some cases, you pay for health coverage that you never receive.

[flamin lib]

6. The point is that WE ARE PAYING FOR OTHERS NOW!! nt

[havocmom]

2. Excellent! We ARE paying for it and IT IS being rationed!

BINGO!

[tandot]

3. Agree. The cost for treating the uninsured is passed on to us.

It is beyond me that people don't get that. We are all already paying for the people who do not have coverage. Hospitals are passing the costs for treating people who can't pay on to all of us. Our premiums go up through the roof because of that.

[flamin lib]

7. The cost for treating the insured is passed along too in the price

of every product we buy and every service we pay for. It is a hidden tax. It's a tax paid by those who have health care and by those who don't.

[sandnsea]

4. Public Employees

Why isn't there enough money for schools, roads, parks, libraries - like there used to be?

Health insurance premiums.

It is costing us in so many ways. And when we pay for Medicaid so that the Waltons can be the richest people in the world, well, what kind of stupid is that?

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. Every one of bush's tax cuts

has been offset by the increase in my health insurance premiums.