Feel free to disagree or set me straight on this; but once again I feel like George Bush is giving a sop to big business in health care with a new proposal. He wants to increase tax deductions for individuals by allowing us to deduct more medical expenses — he thinks this will fight the increasing cost of medical care, in some magical way.
This proposal is meant to help uninsured people, people who are paying all their medical costs out of pocket. Of course, a deduction works best for people who make a lot of money because it reduces your taxable income. So, if you are unemployed or living at the bottom of the income heap, like most uninsured people, a deduction does absolutely nothing at all. Here’s an example: I wasn’t sure how to account for my medical expenses this year as I’ve paid my own since I moved to California. When I deducted all my health care expenses, it only increased my tax refund by about $100… and I made more than $50,000 last year. Now, what good is a deduction going to be for someone who made $19,000 and spent a large chunk on medical expenses? Not a damned thing. But it would work wonderfully for someone who made $400,000. And it is far more likely that the low-income person would not have insurance than the high-income person.
Of course, when you give someone a tax break to offset their cost, someone still has to pay for it. How does that drop in tax revenue get offset?
I know its tantamount to socialism, but why do we allow big business to continually gouge us for essentials like medical care and pharmaceuticals, and then keep us paying using dubious insurance discount schemes? Why doesn’t Congress ever haul these profiteers in front of a committee and then force them to cap their prices? And isn’t it about time for a national health care system?