Wednesday, January 26, 2011

health care

there are a lot of proponents for free health care.

i am not one of them.

it's not from a republican or democrat standpoint or loyalty (i can't stand either party).  it is from the fact that the entire concept is stupid.  if public health care were a stock, no one would buy it.  and obama's current plan is a worse idea that free health care for everyone.

looking at what i pay in medicare and medicaid now (and projected earnings), i will pay around $75k-$100k over the course of my career to public health care.  my wife, who has worked for 5 or so years now (making under $50k a year) will be coming home soon to be a stay at home mom, meaning she will have paid hardly anything ($5k tops).  when i turn 65, i am a simple surgery, some medication, and a few doctors visits away from eating up the entire amount that i paid in.  add in my wife, and boom, the system is definitely going negative (assuming we live that long).

i have a grandmother who had a $100k quadruple bypass surgery when she was around 70 years old (she was always thin and healthy.  just one of those things).  she never worked a day in her life, and is a housewife and [was] a stay at home mom, and has been since she graduated from college.  she's a great example of why this system is broke.  her decision to stay home has done nothing more than cost the american taxpayer a crapload of money.

the problem with obama's plan is that it is a huge tax on the middle class, and is being used to pay for the lower class.  supposedly 30 million americans are without insurance (number thrown around before he passed it).  that still means 270 million have insurance.  even if you bump the number up to 50 and 250, most people are covered.  considering we have an illegal immigrant population of around 20 million, we are talking about 5-10%, which is about right.

to pay for these uninsured people, obama is digging deep into the deficit, and then forcing the middle class to pony up.  the thing that immediately hit me was the gutting of the "cafeteria plan" option that most companies provide.  this was a way for people to pay for medications, ointments, and general aid, and to do so in a pretaxed way.  you could buy your asperin, contact solution, diapers...almost anything found in a pharmacy..., and do so pretaxed.  not any more.  now, it only pays for medications, and it doesn't even cover most over the counter meds, even if they are prescribed (i had an over the counter ointment prescribed to me, and only 1 pharmacy in 20 miles had it, and it still wasn't covered).  it wasn't too bad for me.  but my friend who has 4 kids took a massive hit.  with the amount of prescriptions he had for his kids, his and his wife's prescriptions, braces for his kids, and everything else in between, he took a massive pay cut due to the gutting of the cafeteria plan.

most people have a basic threshold of living.  by that, i mean that a family's food, gas, utilities, basic clothing, basic mortgage, and car payments will never dip below a certain point.  granted, the sky is the limit on spending, but there is a basic number that each family lives by; an amount of money required to live before the extras get paid for.  for most in the lower and middle class, this means that the ability to obtain wealth is not an option, as most of a family's income goes towards paying for daily living.  the rich can easily meet their quota for their bills, and then use the extra money to generate more wealth, or to improve their style of living.  even a slight hit in taxes can be a huge thing for the middle class.

the only reasonable way to pay for everyone's health care is to raise taxes.  a tax raise doesn't hurt the lower class, because they get exempted from taxes.  it doesn't hurt the upper class, because they can afford it (if you make $250k+ a year, a 5% tax doesn't hurt).  but to the middle class, these taxes hurt.  the middle class still has a struggle to meet the needs of their lifestyles, and now they are expected to pony up for those who don't want to work or do well in school.

the problem is, when a tax increase takes place, the middle class feels it the hardest.

i have a friend who grew up very poor (food stamps, donations...).  his siblings floated through high school, dropped out of college, had kids, and are now living on government assistance.  they are/were lazy, and didn't value a better life.  my friend worked hard through school, was valedictorian, graduated from college, and got a good job.  he gets no help from anyone.  yet, with the government assistance, his sisters don't make much less than he does.  he worked hard, and they still get to live a cushioned life because they are lazy.  it's a joke.

we need to quit being so protective in this country.  we have become a nation of sissies.  some people are going to be poor, and it is because of the decisions they made in life.  to pay for health care, and do so responsibly, we need to raise taxes by a lot, and it isn't right.

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