i am far from an expert on healthcare economics in this country, but from my common-sense perspective this strikes me as the stupidest fucking proposal in the known universe.
it's beyond absurd. the american "health care system"1 has two main (and related) problems: (1) the growing ranks of the uninsured, and (2) rising health care costs. the problems are related because as health care costs rise, more employer decide it's not worth the costs and cut off their employees' health insurance, thus increasing the number of uninsured (problem #1). and the shrinking pool of people with insurance means that health insurance companies have to increase individual premiums to avoid loss of profits, which drives problem #2 and starts the cycle over again.
so if i understand bush's plan correctly, he wants to tax health insurance coverage to pay for coverage of the uninsured. (the uninsured will not actually be extended coverage, but will rather be given a tax deduction to pay for them to buy their own health insurance). in other words, he'll make it more expensive for employers to offer health benefits by cutting away at the tax breaks for offering health insurance; tax breaks that are among the few remaining incentives those employers have to offer health insurance to their employees. won't that just accelerate problem #2 and cause an even faster growth of the number of uninsured?
even if the new coverage for the uninsured bush is proposing helps with problem #1 in the short term, the tax will encourage a growth in the number of people who are are entitled to the new tax break to buy their own insurance and a decrease in the revenue produced by the tax on employes who offer insurance. as employers have an incentive to end health benefits, that means the tax will be paid by a smaller and smaller group of people. so the revenue produced will shrink at the same time that the liabilities of the new deduction grows. the program will simply consume itself, leaving an even larger pool of people who are not covered by employer-based insurance with less money to pay for the new deduction.
am i missing something? how can anyone not see this plan as a disaster waiting to happen?
----------------------
1- i'm putting it in quotes because that's what it's called even though it's not particularly good at delivering health, there's not a lot of care, and it's such a mess it really shouldn't be called a "system."
(note: edited for clarity)
