Ran across this article today, and wowsers it is a sad day for the U.S. I remember when, in Iowa, I was so jazzed that, then candidate, Obama stated that every American should have access to the same health care coverage given to U.S. Senators.
Yet now, the coverage given to my wife and family could face an excise tax of up to 60%.
I used to live in North Carolina, there the best insurance the state offered required a $6000 payment for my wife's first pregnancy, and a $12,000 bill for her problems with migraine headaches. Bankruptcy brought about by sh*tty coverage was one of the main reasons influencing our decision to move northwards.
In CT we have 20 dollar co-pay's for doctors, and 100 dollar co-pay's for ER visits, so that if we need to go to the doctor we can. Instead of 6000 for a pregnancy, my wife's second pregnancy totaled 260 dollars.
I'll be a president who finally makes health care affordable and available to every single American...
This is very similar to the coverage enjoyed by U.S. senators. Our blue care coverage reduces hospital charges from what U.S. employees pay (200$) to 100 dollars, bot otherwise their blue cross coverage is very similar.
However this plan, a plan which prevents our family from falling into Medical bill induced bankruptcy would be a Cadillac plan. My son had need of a $5,000 nebulizer for Asthma, in North Carolina we would have been required to pay all of it. In Connecticut it was twenty dollars. My daughter has a gluten allergy and has to go to the Childrens' hospital once a month at a billed rate of over 1,500 per visit. In N.C we would be required to pay 12,000 prior to any coverage by the Health-care company.
These payments would have forced us into a choice of either foregoing Health-care coverage, bankruptcy, or leaving our employment in order to get Medicaid coverage for our children.
By having this coverage we are more productive members of society. We do not worry if our children are sick if we can afford to pay rent, or lights, or food.
An excise tax is opposed by U.S. Unions and for good reason, it is a proposal that directly aids and abets in the further destruction of the U.S. middle class. It is distinctly anti-progressive, in fact it is regressive. The majority of people with these plans are middle-class people who want to pay a little more from their paycheck so that their financial house doesn't cave in around them if a health care crisis comes.
Personally, I am outraged. Instead of limiting the amount of fat that is put into the system by providers, health insurers, and pharmaceutical companies, the president is in effect saying that the root cause of the health care price explosion is the fault of those covered. The middle class, and the unions, it is being said, are at fault for our health-care mess and should be taxed. How sick.
Mr. President it is a Health-care set-up that is run as a for-profit institution that is pushing up health-care costs. Please, sir, fix the real problem, don't tax the middle-class, or force us into plans which would only increase the number of medical bankruptcies.