Bushco's solution for healthcare: MAKE IT MORE EXPENSIVE!

[UdoKier]

In case anybody missed this, please mention it you your Bush-loving relatives...

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/17/225031/80

also can be seen at the WaHoPo (registration required)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58554-2004Nov17.html

The Bush administration is floating a a proposal reported on Washingtonpost.com to eliminate the credit businesses receive when they pay for their employees' health care.

The administration will also push hard for large savings accounts that could shelter thousands of dollars of deposits each year from taxation on investment gains, according to White House economic advisers who have been involved with the planning. And any tax reform, according to Treasury Department officials, would likely eliminate the alternative minimum tax, a parallel income tax designed to ensure that the rich pay income taxes but one that increasingly ensnares the middle class. To pay for those large tax cuts, the administration is looking at eliminating both the deduction for state and local taxes, and the business tax deduction for employer-sponsored health insurance. That would raise nearly $926 billion over five years, according to White House and congressional documents.

Expect the 40% of Americans with no health insurance to balloon even more...

[Dem Agog]

1. what does this do to state government employees?

My mother, a Bush supporter simply because she's stupid, works in a public school. I wonder if this will affect her health care. She's chronically ill and requires thousands of dollars of medications and yearly (or more) surgeries...

If this affects her it's going to be the first thing I point out to her next time she complains to me about her health care costs. God she's so dumb. All her brains must have leaked out her placentas...

[UdoKier]

3. I don't think public schools get these deductions.

However, in the current GOP slash/privatize everything environment, there are few school districts where teachers' salaries and health benefits aren't being put on the table to balance budgets.

Good luck to your mom... in regaining her marbles...

[Straight Shooter]

2. Welcome to the ice floe plan of health care

I'm predicting the emergence of a "survival instinct" in America, as every safety net is being cut from under us. And of course, with rising prices in gas, heating oil, electricity, property tax, food, health care in general, prescriptions, how do we afford health insurance to begin with?

People will close ranks and will have nothing to offer those who are poor or ill anything but sympathy or contempt. We will be a nation of "There but for the grace of God go I, and better you than I."

[jdj]

5. I'll tell you what might happen

it's what corporations dred, which is that people swing into a depression-era conservation mentality. Nothing would be better for the environment, but it will kill retail.

That is the fine line this admin has to walk, raise the temp. slowly so the masses don't decide to cut the breads and circuses right out of their budget.

[snippy]

4. Maybe his theory is that the dead no longer need healthcare.

Fewer healthcare consumers means lower demand and lower demand means lower prices.

[blueknight]

6. you are wrong!

bushco's answer to the health care problem is DONT GET SICK!

[snippy]

9. True. Another possibility is that he will heal everyone during his weekly

Saturday morning radio address.

[rucky]

11. You're not too far off from the Neocon "vision"

thin the population & that leaves more jobs, resources, $$$ for anybody fortunate enough to survive endless war, economic starvation & neglect.

the Final Solution is either kill & steal or conserve. that's what the global war of ideology boils down to - population & resources.

[UdoKier]

13. Mustn't thin the poulation too much.

A big, poor, unemployed populace equals beaucoup cheap labor.

Yet another reason for their cynical anti-choice rhetoric...

[liberal N proud]

7. Then the next step will be to make it impossible to sue

the doctor when they screw up. We are midway down a dark, dark path.

[Warpy]

8. This is just the beginning, folks

They mean to end all burdens on corporations. The next thing to go will be the matching contribution to Social Security. Then they'll drop all pretense of those pension funds and 401-Ks we know they've already looted. Companies will pay for hours worked, and that's all, and then only if you're not educated enough to be "recalssified" out of overtime pay. Then your hours will keep going up while your pay stays the same until your job is outsourced.

We're being looted as a country, and there's nothing we can do about it until that realization starts to penetrate into the smug and stupid who vote Repuglican.

[UdoKier]

10. And when the government is hopelessly insolvent, the corps' can step in...

...and take over - like Robocop, but not just Detroit. Privatize the whole government. How responsive do you think a corporate government would be to citizens' needs?

Don't think it could happen? Did ANYONE think we'd be THIS far through the looking glass in 2004 back in 1992? I sure as hell didn't.

[rucky]

12. "I'll buy that for a dollar."

you ain't kidding.

[ClintonTyree]

14. Everything will be "faith-based".................

"Faith based" healthcare, pray you don't get sick. "Faith based" social seurity, pray you don't get old enough to retire. "Faith based"
everything! Pray your needs away. GOD will provide! (as long as you have the money like the Slugs, he'll provide).
You bleeding heart Liberals make me sick. PRAYER, that's your only hope for the future. ;)
Of course more red-staters will probably die than blue-staters. We blue-staters have programs in place to help the sick and elderly. Red-staters beware! You're going to be doing a LOT of praying in the near future, I hope the invisible cloud dude hears all of them. He seems to be pretty selective in who he listens to. Of course that's just MY observation. He'll probably take care of all the pro-athletes first and regular folks are on the bottom of the list.