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local Democratic Party Club. It kind of nutshells the highlights of each plan.
So, let’s start with President Bush’s plan, a complicated scheme to privatize all health care and divert even more of the taxpayer’s health care dollars to the for profit health care industry. This is at the bottom of our health care problems. Our health care dollars are not going to pay the physicians and health care givers, nor are they going for the health care of the patient but into the pockets of the executive officers of these corporations and the profits of Wall Street investors. Here are some of the highlights.
President Bush has proposed:
Health Savings Accounts—this scheme involves insurance companies selling health savings accounts with an HSA Deductibility—under this proposal, taxpayers can set up tax-sheltered accounts similar to IRAs and then use the proceeds to pay out-of-pocket health costs and premiums. Very few low income people will find such accounts useful. They are beneficial mainly to people in higher tax brackets.
Prescription Drug Benefit under Medicare—this is a joke. Drug discount cards have always been available. We couldn’t find one that was more cost effective for us personally than the one we always had, but we have had our drug expense increase. For example I will use two of the drugs my husband has been taking for more than a year. Last year his Combivent inhaler cost $55.62. A year later it is $62.19 for the same medication.
Another drug Quinine Sulfa was $9.09, a year ago for a month’s supply. This month we paid $17.76, almost twice as much for a month’s supply. This isn’t just a few medications but across the board because the plan didn’t include a provision to negotiate prices with the pharma companies.
According to Howard Dean the $540 billion Medicare Prescription bill will send more dollars to HMO’s pharma companies and insurance companies than to our seniors.
The worst part of this prescription benefit is that in 2006 it will succeed in privatizing Medicare and force seniors into HMOs in order to receive drug benefits. The end result is no choice in health care providers, tight restrictions on health care benefits, a smaller pool of health care providers and benefits being decided by the accounting offices not a physician.
Also, with private health plans proclivity for cherry picking the healthy and denying coverage to the ill, more seniors will find themselves without necessary health care and prescriptions while rosy profits are posted in Wall Street for the corporations at taxpayer’s expense. When it comes to entitlement programs, the corporatists always proclaim that the marketplace should determine the cost, yet when it comes to them, they have no problem with entitlements and corporate welfare when they benefit from it.
Strengthen Medicaid and SCHIP (State Children’s Health Insurance Program)—According to Dr. Howard Dean, 500,000 children and one million adults have been kicked off Medicaid as the disastrous increase in federal deficits are passed along in the form of service cuts and higher taxes to state and local governments.
Provide a Health Insurance Tax Credit. A family earning $25,000 or less could receive a “refundable tax credit” or government payment of up to $3,000 towards the purchase of health insurance. However, the average family health insurance policy in 2003 cost $9,000 if employer provided. An individual policy would be even more. So a family earning less than $25,000 still has to pay $6,000 out of pocket. This would be a quarter of their total income and if they actually used the insurance, they would have to pay deductibles and co-pays as well.
Association Health Plans—the idea is that small businesses can organize themselves into associations to purchase health insurance collectively at lower rates. What a great idea, but businesses are already free to do this and many do already. But wait a minute. Bush’s proposal would exempt such associations from regulations that currently prohibit discrimination against individuals based on health status. This new provision could provide favorable rates for the young and healthy. The ill and aged will have to look elsewhere.
Bush’s plan it is estimated would cost between $91 and $100 billion over ten years. How does he intend on paying for it? He proposes cutting two programs that actually help people get health care, Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program or SCHIF.
Kerry’s Plan
Thomas Geoghegan, a lawyer and an author has stated in an article for the Physicians for a National Health Program, “It is very hard for the Democrats to forswear the cult of complexity. But they can’t become the majority party if they continue to make everything too complicated. For example, I actually like Kerry’s program on health. But I doubt anyone but the New York Times’ Paul Krugman can explain it.”
This is a brief summary of what Kerry offers:
• Give every American Access to the Same Health Plan As members of Congress.
• Guaranteed health care for every child
• Support Medical Research and Assure all Americans benefit from the most effective treatment
• Make health care more affordable
For small business
For workers in between jobs
For retirees and Americans age 55 to 64
• Protect Medicare
• A new approach to Control Spiraling Health Care Costs
Lowering costs with new technology
• Affordable Prescription drugs for all
• Assuring fairness for people with Mental health needs
• Making malpractice insurance more affordable
• Strong enforceable bill of rights
• Protect the right to choose
• Protecting Women’s Health
Affordable health care for America’s families—Insure every child. He would provide a new deal to assure that the Federal government picked up the cost of the nearly 20 million kids enrolled in Medicaid in exchange for states covering kids in the Children’s health program.
Automatic enrollment in health coverage for each child in school requiring continuous 12 months of eligibility, and fulfilling the obligations to have eligibility workers available at community health centers to help enroll families. Also he would make sure all children are eligible.
Expand coverage for working parents up to 200 percent of poverty. Cover single or childless adults at or below the poverty line.
Cutting Small Business Health Care Costs—a premium rebate pool and access to FEHBP (Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan) and the Congressional Health Plan with a 50% tax credit for the cost of coverage would make health care two-thirds cheaper for small business employees than it is today.
Plan for affordable, quality health care coverage—Kerry’s plan will alleviate health care costs for families while providing increased choice and quality. He will make health care more affordable for all employers and employees by helping out with certain high cost health cases—up to $1,000 in premium relief, and expand access and choice by allowing Americans access to the same range of affordable health care plans that members of Congress get today. In addition, Kerry will make health insurance more affordable by providing tax credits for individuals and small businesses who buy into these plans, and insure all children and millions more adults by encouraging states to expand Medicaid eligibility for low-income children and families. Finally, Kerry will cut health care costs by allowing prescription drug reimportation and eliminating wastes through a series of reforms that will improve quality while reducing costs.
Plan for Affordable, Quality and Reliable health care coverage
For America’s Veterans—Kerry’s plan will push for mandatory funding for veterans health care so that American never pits veterans in one state against veterans in another, and it will streamline the veterans’ health care system so that veterans get the care they need in a timely fashion. He will end the disabled veterans’ tax so that retired veterans are not punished for receiving both veterans’ pensions and disability compensation, and he will fight to ensure that all military reservists have access to the same level of healthcare as other soldiers on the battlefield.
Kerry’s Plan to Lower Prescription Drug Prices for Seniors—the two outstanding points of Kerry’s plan would be to re-import drugs from Canada and to prevent seniors being forced into HMOs because of spiraling costs.
Two estimates of Kerry’s plan are one says it would cost $900 billion over ten years. Then a revised study claimed it would cost $653 billion over a decade. How does he propose paying for it? He has said he would raise taxes on the top 2% that has received the generous tax cuts of George W. Bush.
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