People below the poverty level are eligible for a medical card which is pretty good. It covers an awful lot. The health care problem revolves primarily small businesses that cannot afford to provide health care and individuals who work for these small businesses, or are self-employed, and cannot afford decent health care either. I would like the small business to be able to join forces and purchase health care plans much like the larger businesses do. The same applies for self-employed people.
You hit the nail on the head in my opinion. A self-employed person has a harder time than someone below the poverty level. The self-employed working person is paying for the med card people but also has to pay a tremendous amount for ever-increasing health care for himself.
Nothing is free. And if the government says it's free, it's REALLY not free. And probably really crappy.
Health care will never be free, except for those who don't work and pay any taxes. But we are moving closer to subsidized health care in this country. We're starting with uninsured children. Some states, like Louisiana, offer subsidized health care (SCHIP) for children. Dems are wanting to expand this into a national program called the Children's Health First Act. Basically, the government will subsidize health care for kids whose family makes less than 400 times the poverty rate. Yep, that's as much as $70,000 for a family of 3, doubling the existing qualification for SCHIP. It's hard for most people to say no to this type of program since we all love kids. But this type of program will slowly find its way to uninsured adults. Yes, I see subsidized health care for the masses in our near future. Just too many politicians out there who think they know what's best for all of us.
This could be done with some easy legislation. But martin would scream that it is another government program and he may be right this time. There are simply savings to be had in group plans and insurance companies pass them along to group members. Individuals and small business can already find ways to get group coverage. Many groups have been created to take advantage of group rates and most individuals can find one. There are group insurance plans for veterans, AARP, AAA, and many others. There are group plans for small businesses, too. Many trade associations have group plans for its member companies. Unions offer plans and there are plans for farmers. There is Medicaid for people on welfare and Medicare for the elderly.
I think i already saw this butm health care will never be free...somebody will end up paying an unequal share of the bill via taxes. I do think something needs to be done with the system though to make it more efficient.
also, if you care about health care, then you should concentrate on tort reform, and keeping frivolous lawsuits from screwing with doctors. also you should not vote for john edwards, who has made a killing off of doctors, creating the situation where malpractice insurance costs doctors (and us) zilions.
