Impeding changes to our Health Care system

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Redux

You cant just say it...you must show it in a graph.

Nearly one out of four (38+%) of the uninsured are in households with income over $50K and just over one out of five (21%)in households of over $75K.

Presumably, most are self-employed or employees of small businesses....productive members of society.

Add the 32% in households between $25-50K (productive, but many still below the poverty level) and that brings it to at least 70% of the uninsured that are in working families.

Thanks for the graph. It's about time! Does that say how many choose not to purchase insurance? What again is the "poverty level"?

Originally Posted by classicman

Thanks for the graph. It's about time! Does that say how many choose not to purchase insurance? What again is the "poverty level"?

The most recent poverty and health insurance data is in the Census report released earlier this month. I just thought the colorful graph was prettier than the raw data.

Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2008
(pdf - see table 7, page 28)

As to the question of choosing to purchase insurance, many factors affect that choice, including the cost.

Consider the fact that the average cost for health insurance for a family of four is now over $12K.

If you are employed and covered by your employer's plan, you pay, on average about 30% of that cost and the employer covers the rest.

If you work for a small business or self-employed, you must purchase that insurance on the open market and pay the full cost yourself.

You might choose to forgo health insurance if it would require 20-25% of your income.

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

No, the family members receive it as a benefit to the service member, who gets it for a time commitment under a contractual obligation with the government. Package deal. Given what many of them go through, I say it is a benefit well deserved.

Personally, I think accessible and affordable quality health care should be a right for all citizens as it is in every other western industrialized country.

Originally Posted by sugarpop

This is why we need a SINGLE PAYER SYSTEM, and for those who think the government can't run anything right, fine, let it be run by a private company, and PAID FOR by the government. Get rid of all the insurance companies. A single payor system would automatically reduce costs, because there is no advertising, and it would cut down dramatically on administrative costs.

While I might share your ultimate goal. I dont think we can get there from here. The political will is not there.

I prefer a more pragmatic approach....half a cake is better than none.

Increased competition through either a public option (first choice) or public/private exchange w/pools for small business employers as well as providing the opportunity for big businesses to purchase across state lines (with some limitation) to provide more choice, is a good first step to help drive down the cost of existing private insurance.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Redux

If you work for a small business or self-employed, you must purchase that insurance on the open market and pay the full cost yourself.

SO basically if you are a small business owner you are screwed.

You might choose to forgo health insurance if it would require 20-25% of your income.

Not an option, everyone will be required to carry it. The middle income people will take the hardest hit or pay the fine to the Feds.

Personally, I think accessible and affordable quality health care should be a right for all citizens as it is in every other western industrialized country.

Thanks for that statement. Please show us where it is a "Right" of "every other western industrialized country"...

While I might share your ultimate goal. I dont think we can get there from here. The political will is not there.

Which is exactly why I have been saying all along that you are about to get a big ass bill that your grand children will be paying off that will not fix the problems with the industry. And yet YOU continue to support this BS as if it is a fix. It is not.

I prefer a more pragmatic approach....half a cake is better than none.

BS again. You are about to accept a less than half empty glass of solutions to fix a problem that is much larger than what the DEMONcrats are putting on the table. I am at the point of letting them have their way to watch them fail and allow them to take the fall. The solutions proposed to this point do not fix the problems in our system.