Yesterday was a bad day. At work, a mother told me she had to stop the physical therapy that she was getting from me for her five-month old baby. She works as a cashier at a locally owned grocery store for minimum wage. She thought she was lucky because she had insurance but she still couldn’t afford the deductible or the co-pay for her baby's treatment.
And to make matters worse when I got home I opened an email for my Republican US Congressman Manzullo telling me HIS healthcare plan. And, if you knew my congressman, you would know he isn't sending anything out that isn't strictly party line. So if you see what he sent, you will pretty much know what the pitiful Republican Healthcare plan contains-
HIis entire plan can be read at his website Congressman Manzullo's healthcare plan
Here are three obvious parts of his plans I have dissected apart
“Creating refundable tax credits to help low-income Americans purchase health insurance – Low-income children are already covered through the federal SCHIP program, and Manzullo supports refundable tax credits to help low-income adults purchase health insurance.”
Can I remind him that he voted AGAINST the SCHIP program. Does he understand that people with very low incomes pay very little taxes? Little tax returns won’t be enough to pay for health insurance and big medical bills.
“Expanding tax-free availability to Health Savings Accounts -- HSAs allow small business owners to offer more affordable high-deductible health insurance plans to their employees and make tax-deductible contributions to employee savings accounts”
There is no guarantee that companies will provide this plan or give money to employee HSA. Looks like a giant hole to fall through to me. What makes him think low wage earning people can afford a Health Savings Account on their own either? This will also give conservatives an excuse to say that people without a HSA don’t deserve health care because they don’t put money (which they can’t afford) in their savings.
“Preserving high-quality health care through America’s community health clinics – Manzullo supports continued funding of our community health clinic system, which provides high-quality health care to America’s low-income families.”
Doubt there will be adequate funds here either especially in these hard economic times. Plus the community health clinics are going to be overrun with patients due to the increased unemployment and under-employed. These clinics only provide primary healthcare and don’t include other healthcare needs including specialist and therapies. And don’t you think these community health clinics sound a little bit like government run medicine?
Today will be a better day. It is my day off and I will stay home and dust my furniture and mop my floors- little chance of seeing people in need.
I look forward to your analysis on these parts of his plans and the other parts too