Bush Speech to Focus on Health Care Costs

[trogdor]

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20060119/D8F7P1M00.html

Bush's idea how to deal with the rising cost of health care.

1. Make the consumer save up for it.
* Raising the dollar amount allowed to accumulate in existing health savings accounts. In these accounts, people shoulder more of the responsibility for the costs of care. They deposit money tax-free into a dedicated account while purchasing a high-deductible policy to cover catastrophic expenses.

Gee, only two more years before I can afford that quintuple bypass I need to stay ali...(urk!)

2. Make the consumer pay for it.
* Additional tax breaks to help people who do not have employer-provided insurance coverage buy their own.

Sure, it's only $6800 a year, but at least it's tax-free, or at least it would if I made enough to pay taxes in the first place. Now, if I could only figure out how to come up with the rent money...

3. Remember COBRA? We'll make it COBRA'er.
* More portability for health insurance when people switch jobs.

So, is Wal-Mart going to pick up the portion of premiums my old boss used to pay before my tech job got offshored to India?

4. Show people exactly how they're getting screwed.
* A way for people to get more information about the price of the care they get and the performance of the doctors they see.

Of course, none of the good doctors (let alone cheap) are on my plan. Are you going to show me how to avoid getting screwed, too?

5. Voting with computers worked so well, let's try it with your medical records.
* A switch from paper medical records to more cost-effective, error-reducing electronic records.

What do you mean I'm fired? That medical info was supposed to be confidential.

6. Make the consumer pay for it.
* The ability for small businesses to pool the purchasing of health insurance coverage across state lines.

Of course, this doesn't mean we're actually going to get medical coverage, does it?

7. Add insult to injury.
* A cap on malpractice verdicts other than actual economic damages, something Bush has been able to get through the House three years in a row, but not the Senate.

So the surgeon did an appendectomy on your late husband when he was supposed to do a quad bypass? Look here, lady, we paid the funeral expenses, including the pine box the mail-order preacher who did the ceremony, and the plot under the freeway overpass; isn't that enough? Hang on a minute while I call the waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaambulance.

Anyway, don't hold out any hope that the Bush administration is going to do anything that's actually useful, or saves you any money, or prevents you from being killed, maimed, or disabled by your doctor. Remember that really neato plan he had for Social Security he had last year? That cool idea that we could turn the Middle East into a democratic utopia (and bring back 99 cent gas) if we invaded Iraq? That really bitchin' No Child Left Behind Act that was supposed to turn our dumb kids into geniuses (like George)? Now he wants to apply the same concept to health care.

Tell ya what, George. Just go out and play golf until January 2009. We'll be fine, really. We don't need any more of your "leadership."

[liberal N proud]

1. Private accounts handled by a bu$h crony

That is the only way he could think, what can he do for a corny.

[tatertop]

2. You said a mouthful of truth

[TheFarseer]

3. Health saving accounts aren't a bad idea

it just isn't being implemented right. If insurance were only for major medical instead of going to the doctor's office and getting a co-pay (what the f*ck kind of insurance is insurance for something you are certain is going to happen a couple times a year??) I like the idea that if you go to the doctor, you have to pay something for it and if it's tax free money, all the better. I don't like the idea, that if you have an appendicitis, your life is ruined and you are in debt forever.

You're right though, much like any bush legislation, most of his proposals will just be a sneaky way to funnel money to corporations.

edited to clarify.

[Faygo Kid]

7. Another tax shelter for the rich. That's what they are.

Yep, that hard working Mom or Dad making $40,000 a year and supporting three kids in W's economy will surely be able to salt away a ton of money in a health savings account. Or, gee, maybe some Republican in the top 1% would perhaps be able to take more advantage of this tax shelter? Also, we should encourage preventive medicine, including regular doctor visits (physicals, etc.); only paying for major surgery would do the opposite.

[ramapo]

9. You first need money to save

The people who have the most trouble affording health care and insurance and the ones who don't have it. Not do they have the ability to save anywhere near enough money to make a significant contribution to their health care costs.

Basically it is a benny for the upper-middle class on up. It does little to nothing to address the problem.

[Warpy]

4. They think there are two classes in the US, themselves

and the expendable. Their own class will do fairly well with this, but even they will find their riches depleted by long illness combined with long term nursing home care. They'll get the point and rebel, eventually.

However, we the expendable simply can't afford to wait that long. This whole idea of putting the onus onto people who simply aren't paid enough to afford it is stupid and cruel.

My curse for these men is that they spend their next ten lifetimes confronting the same medical system I've had to navigate due to chronic illness, the same ineligibility for consistent employment from employers nervous that I'd drive their damn premiums up, and the same lack of preventive care.

This is absolutely the worst system in the world. I want them to suffer it.

[lovuian]

5. Save what Money... between no raises high gas prices

high food prices and rising health care costs and NO pensions...

SAVE WHAT???

Bush knows healthcare is out of control and is doing the only thing he knows make the lower incomes pay the miiddle income pay and the rich it doesn't matter to them...

[LibDemAlways]

6. Those savings plans are laughable.

Where the hell is the average person living paycheck to paycheck, already barely making the mortgage or rent, utilities, car-related expenses, insurance - never mind food, clothing, upkeep of the house, existing doctor and dental bills and all the other expenses that crop up - and more than likely already drowning in a sea of debt because the monthly income doesn't cover everything as it is, going to come up with the money to put aside for future medical bills knowing damn well the paltry ten or twenty bucks a week that would go into the account would never begin to cover an emergency?


Another plan sure to benefit the top 1%, but completely unrealistic for the little guy. When the hell are ordinary people going to wake up and realize that this evil cabal has done absolutely nothing of any value for them in the last five years?

[barb162]

8. What's this. He'll probably try to get rid of all health care in the

country... except his own, of course.

[ramapo]

10. COBRA is great if you can afford it

Health insurance should be affordable and portable. COBRA is great but there are limitations depending upon your situation. Eligibility ends when you are eligible for coverage under a new group plan...even if the plan sucks. And you're responsible for paying the entire cost of the policy. Our family coverage cost is about $18K/yr in a group. If I had to buy an individual family plan, I'd have to pay about $25K/yr. Rather outrageous isn't it?

[SillyGoose]

11. With the possible exception of #6, none of these address the

problem of affordable healthcare coverage which is why this won't amount to a hill of beans for regular people without access to affordable coverage. I do not want Bushco in charge of health insurance in any way shape or form.

[ramapo]

12. A speech is not a solution and politicians don't want to fix this anyway

How could anybody take this guy seriously? For that matter, I'm to the point where I don't take ANY of them seriously, democrat or republican.

The healthcare/insurance issue will not be fixed until there is a mass uprising (which will never happen because the American public are like stoned sheep).

Consult Clinton's book where he talks about the defeat of his healthcare package. What nobody remembers is that there was an early almost bipartison effort to seriously address the problem. Then the lobbyists got into the act and Republicans realized that Clinton would get credit for fixing the problem. That would be political suicide so they squashed the plan like a bug.