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November 05, 2003

Poor Tax Part II: Health Care

As I alluded to in my last entry, Health Care is one of the worst of the poor taxes. It is getting harder and harder for individuals to afford their own health care. This was less of a problem when you could be assured that slaving for a large company would yield satisfactory health insurance. That just isn't the case anymore. 35% of those without health care work for large companies. Unfortunately, companies of all sizes are beginning to rethink their health care benefits. Health care has increased in cost over 40% in the last 10 years making it difficult for companies to afford health insurance for its employees. There is a lot of truth to their claim. However, it is also safe to assume many companies who COULD afford health insurance for its employees are taking the easy way out. Until recently, it was considered very bad form to not provide health care for your workers. Due to the rising cost of health care, this stigma has lifted and companies are free to take the cheap way out. Most companies who do not provide health care COULD provide some coverage or at least some cost sharing.

The modern American Dream at its least duplicitous is about starting your own business, being your own boss. During the 90s the nightly news would do exposes on people who were successfully working out of the home while rising their kids. The inaccessibility of health care for small business and individuals has made this proposition far less appealing. Most of us have had something wrong with us that required we go to the doctor. Think you can get health insurance after that minor knee surgery that you've 100% recovered from? No, I've tried. I had knee surgery 4 years ago and haven't had any trouble with it in 3 years. However, the fact that I had surgery meant I have a pre-existing condition. When I went looking for health insurance, I found no one would even give me a ridiculous quite, they just said they wouldn't cover me.

I used to be fully against a government health care, arguing that the government spends more and screws up everything they do. However, what do we do when private health care just won't cover a huge portion of our population? Do we just keep making laws to further regulate the health insurance industry? At some point, you end up with so many laws, the job of enforcing those laws becomes more expensive than if the government were to just take it over. What's the difference between massive government regulation/enforcement and government run? The fact the the government is full of pork and corruption is a wholly separate issue. To me it seems the solution isn't to try and take as much from the government as we can because we don't trust them. Since we rely on them for so much anyway, it seems the solution is to try and fix government.

Back to the idea of Health Care being another poor tax. This is one area that I do not think the non-rich will stand for for long. As the health care tax encroaches on the powerful middle-class, they will not stand idly by with those who have getting health care while those who don't have get sick and die. I heard a report recently that boggled my mind. It talked about the epidemic in America of excessive health care. Their study claimed that those who had too much access to health care were more likely to die younger than those who had less health care. Worse, there was a huge percentage of the population that had this fatal excessive health care. To me, this sounds like the tobacco industry saying cigarettes are healthy after-all. I wonder who paid for this study? I mean, obviously, now that we know this new information, its good that people don't have as much health care right?

Those who don't have enough to provide the minimum of health care for their children will not stand idly by while the those who are more fortunate are taken care of. The rich had the poor fooled into thinking it was enough to live in this great country. Now the poor will hear what they're really saying,
"Let them eat cake!"

Posted by wonko at November 5, 2003 10:03 AM

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Comments

Posted by: God at November 7, 2003 09:07 AM

Posted by: Wonko at November 10, 2003 05:29 PM

Posted by: Obigabu at November 10, 2003 05:38 PM

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