[clue-talk] Wow, Card's a little political...

[Nate Duehr]

On Nov 2, 2008, at 4:01 AM, Brian Gibson wrote:

> Your ideal plan already exists.  It's called a savings account minus  
> the tax free part, but there's also these things called Health  
> Savings Accounts which I believe are tax deferred or can be claimed  
> as a tax deduction or somewhere along those lines there's a tax  
> benefit.  HSAs do exactly what you want except they're restricted to  
> paying for health costs, but they double as another retirement  
> account to be withdrawn at the age of 65.  And I even predicted such  
> a plan at the end of the same paragraph from which you took my  
> quote.  Yet individual plans are more expensive compared to group  
> plans for equal coverage because the cost of health care is spread  
> over the entire group rather than letting every one fend for  
> themselves.  Your plan only works for those that have the income to  
> put towards health care.  Therefore there will be a segment of the  
> population priced out and so is no better than what we currently  
> have, other than the increased personal
> autonomy over your income (which is obviously very important to you).

HSA's are close, but there are a number of limitations including the  
requirement that they have to be paired with a high-deductible medical  
plan, they have a cap on how much money can be put into them, and the  
medical plan is still tied to your employer.  More open policy and  
more competition is needed before it will work.

As far as Individual vs. Group plans -- Group plans are not allowed to  
be sold to individuals, and I'm aware of a national company who only  
has 3-5 individuals in any particular State working for them.  They  
want to provide medical coverage to all of their employees, but in  
Colorado and Massachusetts, it's illegal for them to do so.

Why?  Because by Colorado law they're required to give every employee  
equal plans.  They are banned from simply having their staff shop for  
their own personal coverage and paying for it.

They're not big enough to qualify for a group plan, and they can't pay  
for the indivduals to get their own coverage.

How's that for screwed up?  Guess what?  They do it anyway, and hope  
they don't get caught, because they know paying for the employees to  
have health coverage is the right thing to do.

> I gave you a link which presented 5 working universal health care  
> systems (2 of them with phenomenal results) each within capitalist  
> societies, and rather than acknowledge their successes, you ignore  
> them?  You wanted an example where socialist mechanisms work and  
> here they are.

I see no example that offers the QUALITY of the care we receive here  
in any of those examples.  Get a disease, get on a waiting list.  Even  
if you saved extra money for emergencies, and were responsible enough  
not to carry debt... unlike the average American who now carries 8  
(!!!) credit cards.  Ridiculous.

Ah well, there will be a clear winner and a clear loser Wednesday...  
we'll see if EITHER candidate can actually ACCOMPLISH anything they  
offer as promises, soon enough.

--
Nate Duehr
nate at natetech.com