Want a good example of how out-of-touch the President is? Well, here’s a preview of his State of the Union address :
President Bush is expected to promote a series of health care initiatives in his State of the Union address tonight, including new incentives for workers to choose coverage that gives them more control over their medical spending.Bush’s proposals will center on health savings accounts, which allow people to set aside tax-free dollars to cover medical expenses. These accounts, which were established under the Medicare Modernization Act passed in late 2003, are tied to high-deductible health insurance policies.
This concept is designed to make people more prudent health care consumers because they spend more of their own money. The accounts reflect Bush’s philosophy of an “ownership society” in which individuals take greater control over their personal health and wealth.
Only a rich kid like the King George would ever think up something like health savings accounts. In his world, it makes perfect sense for Americans to save up for something they can’t afford. Hell, he’s never had to worry about money, why should we? Well, here’s a good reason to worry :
Americans spent $42bn (£24bn) more than they earned last year, turning the annual US savings ratio negative for the first time since the Great Depression.
. . .
The savings ratio fell to minus 0.5 per cent last year, meaning Americans not only spent all of their after-tax income but also had to increase their borrowings or plunder their savings. This is the first time theratio has gone negative for an entire year since 1932 and 1933, when the US was struggling to cope with the Great Depression.The savings ratio is seen as a key economic indicator as it shows how vulnerable households are to a sudden shock such as a surge in interest rates or unexpected redundancy.
Since our trust fund baby-in-chief is fond of recycling the same crappy proposals over and over again, I hope you’ll forgive me for doing the same by reposting part of what I wrote the last time he tried to sell this utopian garbage :
I wonder if Bush has ever had to lay all his bills out on the kitchen table and figure out which ones he can pay immediately and which ones can wait until the next paycheck? Or if he’s ever lived in an overcrowded apartment with hand-me-down furniture, eating the same thing six days a week because it’s cheaper? Or if he’s ever had to settle for a job slightly less shitty than the one he had in high school because there weren’t any jobs in the field he majored in? Of if he’s gone through the process of figuring out which generic brand products at the grocery store are as good as the name brands and which ones aren’t?As most of you know, I’m not just describing poverty here. This is normal life for many Americans. Some live paycheck to paycheck, while others are able to pinch enough pennies to save a few bucks. Either way, most people don’t have thousands of dollars to spare.
Practically speaking, savings accounts for retirement and heath care a huge mistake, but for entirely separate reasons. With the latter, the rub is that health care is expensive. Let’s say you have an medical emergency with costs in the $20-30K range. How long would it take you to save that much? A few years? Even with the vague incentives, we’re still looking at a plan that’s the equivalent of asking every American to buy a new car that he/she may never drive.
That same principle holds true with Republican proposals for education and retirement savings. Do they honestly believe we’ve all got extra income sitting around that we can throw in the bank? It must be nice to grow up in the GOP world of disposable income and “personal responsibility”…
January 31st, 2006 at 8:04 am
Even if we ignore the difficulties most people will face in socking away enough money in their HSA, the fundamental premise upon which Bush’s proposal is based is wrong. People cannot “shop” for healthcare that way they do for other products and services.
One reason is that they lack the knowledge to make even remotely informed decisions. For example, how many of us are able to comparison shop among doctors for, say, arthritis treatments? We don’t know enough about the condition, the various recognized treatments, the drugs and their side effects, the going rates among doctors, etc. Sure, you could take six months to become self educated on all of this–but you’re in pain NOW.
Another is that many conditions do not allow any time for “shopping.” If you break an arm, for example, you are not going to call five different emergency rooms to get their prices for fixing your broken wing. And even if you did, whatever they told you over the phone would be useless since they can’t possibly know what’s involved until they see some x-rays.
No, the end result of the HSA plan will be people forgoing preventive care and letting “minor” conditions fester into major illnesses because they can’t (or won’t) pay for routine care. Thus, instead of incipient diabetes being caught early and treated with diet and exercise, it will be detected when the patient goes blind or needs a foot amputated. A condition that could have been treated for essentially peanuts will end up costing tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.
January 31st, 2006 at 9:06 am
This is very concise. This past year, my daughter had a drug addiction problem. Inpatient costs. There goes savings, here comes second mortgage. I had to go outside my network. The netwotk covered only a Christian 12 Step program which most of daughter’s friends failed in. She is now 8 months clean and I am very happy. Broke too. I will be working until I am 70 if I am lucky.
That aside, if I had a HSA, there would have been no treatment for my daughter. A second mortgage is all that would have helped. I had two leg surgeries last year and I have a knee that was supposed to have been replaceed when I was thirty. I am now 55 and it won’t happen for years now, and this is with benefits and health insurance. I’ll let you know the next time I can take 6 months off work and realize I will have to change professions when the surgery is done.
HSAs will not work unless you are very very well to do. Ford and GM are correct that health care adds 20% on to their costs. It is 19% for health care only for my employees. Our health care system is so broken that a program serving only the upper 15% of our country won’t save it. Ask a family of four who is making $30,000 annually how much they can save raesonably. The answer may be quite small unless they forego having internet, TVs and new cars–in which case the economy will fall and it won’t matter.
January 31st, 2006 at 9:41 am
For more on the moral hazard myth, see http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050829fa_fact
January 31st, 2006 at 10:12 am
Bills? What bills? This man never SEES his bills! He hires people to take care of that kinda thing! Damn! Wouldn’t that be nice? To be able to HIRE someone to open your bills and pay them?? Anyway, back from the world of dreams, does any common working person in Amerika still think Bush is looking out for them?? Well, to all you noble Patriots, the Easter Bunny says hello and the Toothfairy wants her fifty cents back. LOL.
January 31st, 2006 at 10:30 am
The State of our Union is STONG!!!!! Need he say any more? SCREW all you friggin’ commie bastards: ASLITO is coming for you… HAHAHAHAAH!
January 31st, 2006 at 10:35 am
I am already doing this, because I have no choice. My health insurance premiums have risen $600 in the last seven months. I have had to drop my employer-sponsored health insurance altogether and go with personal insurance, to the tune of a $2500 deductible ($5,000 family). I’m taking the difference in what I was paying before the last increase and burying it in a mason jar in the backyard - that’s my Health Savings Account.
That $350 a month would make a car note. My wife is driving a 10 year old Saturn with the roof falling in and the clutch about to go. I just did my taxes - we made over $60K last year and we can’t afford good health insurance. There is something wrong with this equation.
http://thepeskyfly.blogspot.com/2006/01/matter-of-choice.html
Universal Health Care NOW!
January 31st, 2006 at 10:42 am
This is totally immoral, and one of the worst examples of “the market takes care of everything” attitude. The market is not going to save your life if you are too afraid to go to the emergency room because you have no REAL health insurance and you have to pay all your medical costs out of a savings account you can’t really afford to pay into. The market is not going to magically let you know whether that lump is a cyst or a tumor or just an ingrown hair. The market is not going to treat your diabetes or chronic back problems at a price you can actually afford. The loving invisible hands of the market won’t magically reach out and stop you from falling down the stairs and breaking your goddamn leg.
The market doesn’t care if you live or die, and neither does Bush. I also don’t know where he got the idea that the problem with healthcare in this country is that too many people are going to the doctor for no reason just because they can? Does he really think people sit around drunk and bored and then say to their buddies “Dude, let’s go to the doctor and run up health costs by getting colonoscopies and X-rays!” Yes, sitting in a crowded waiting room for hours surrounded by coughing people and being poked and prodded and having cameras stuck in your private bits while wearing weird ill-fitting cotton things that don’t cover your ass is the new selfish hedonistic pursuit of choice.
Argh…
January 31st, 2006 at 10:47 am
Oh, and you are so right on with your old rant–of course he’s never had to scrimp and save in his life. I sort of did a piece/rant on this–the idea that somehow Americans who already save NOTHING are magically going to be able to squeeze out enough to completely pay for health care and retirement and college and… yeah, right.
http://www.mikhaela.net/weblog/2006/01/new-cartoon-ad-money-w-susie-poorman-i.html
Of course, Bush himself doesn’t scrimp and save. He’s happy to blow billions on an unjust war.
January 31st, 2006 at 11:08 am
I’m not disagreeing at all with this post, as I think it’s a bad idea as well. I just wanted to clarify how the HSA system works since I just had to sign up for it as well. There is still an out of pocket maximum for many if not most of the HSAs. It isn’t just a savings account. The idea is supposed to be that you pay a lower premium, save the difference between premium and deductible, then in case of a catastrophic circumstance, the insurance pays for anything over $3000 (in my case).
As Roger Migchelbrink pointed out the biggest problem is with what is covered under a given health insurance, and really, that is a problem HSA or not.
Jason
January 31st, 2006 at 11:25 am
The article is very revealing in that they don’t talk about the pink elephant in the room called single payer healthcare. Somthing must be done they say but never mention the most obvious and best solution to the problem. I think about all the poor and middle class people who voted for Bush twice on the basis of the “war on terrorism” or god, gays and guns or other “culturual” issues and now they are reaping the unexpected (to them) results of voting for the Republican philosophy. If it wasn’t so sad it would actually be hilarious. Like my dad says their idea of an ownership society is….your on your own.
January 31st, 2006 at 12:15 pm
Even though there is an out-of-pocket maximum, that still doesn’t change the fact that these plans will scare people away from getting preventive care. $3,000 is a lot of money when you don’t have any.
January 31st, 2006 at 12:35 pm
The only “personal responsibility” Bush knows is his responsibility to the folks in the health insurance industry who helped to bankroll his presidential campaigns. Really, everything else this guys has touched (education, Medicare, FEMA, war) has been an utter disaster. If a majority of Americans were smart enough (at least, temporarily) to turn down his Social Security scam, they really should think twice about giving him this one.
I won’t be watching his State of the Union address tonight. I’ll be watching something more morally edifying—like, say, “Faces of Death.”
January 31st, 2006 at 12:52 pm
I’m lucky enough to qualify as a “company” under BC/BS guidelines, so I can get a slight break on health insurance to cover myself and my wife. Still, we’re paying more than $500 per month for a policy with a $10,000 deductible. Thus our total out-of-pocket cost for a catastrophic health problem in any given year is more than $16,000.
This, I think, closely parallels what Bush wants to see: People socking away some dough to deal with the huge deductible of a catastrophic-coverage policy. But how many people will have $16,000 handy for this package? How many will end up in bankruptcy from even a moderately expensive health problem?
January 31st, 2006 at 1:18 pm
Bush is an idiot. Come up with a better plan: Tax deductable medical expenses and/or insurance premiums, and a tiered tax system on capital gains from treasury investments. Series I bills are easy to buy directly from the treasury, can start as low as $25, and are indexed to inflation. Below a certain point, capital gains from such an investment would go untaxed.
Doing this, people lend money to the government, get interest, and save all at the same time. If they get a tax break on medical expenses, they do more preventive health care. If they get a tax break on insurance premiums, the insurance companies are happy because more people buy insurance, and the goal of insuring more Americans (not such a great goal, but politically useful) is satisfied.
Of *course* Bush’s plan is stupid, but sitting around saying it’s stupid is like sitting around watching paint dry *and* speaking up every few minutes to remind the American people that the paint isn’t dry yet.
January 31st, 2006 at 1:28 pm
The average savings for those early-adopters who have taken up health savings accounts is now $1500. It is expected to rise to $3k by 2010. This was noted without remark in an NY Times article last week.
This is not savings for catastrophe; this is a the deductible in a high-deductible insurance plan.
Fortunately I think this is too stupid to fly.
January 31st, 2006 at 1:58 pm
How does this do anything to help the uninsured? If they don’t have a good job, with insurance, than they obviously can’t afford to save money for the unknowable future. Please, this is so stupid, I wonder if anyone really thought this up, or if Mr. Bush was just left with a pen and paper.
January 31st, 2006 at 2:04 pm
I have decent healthcare…
But the insurance company is a wholly owned subsidiary of the non-profit healthcare organisation that I work for…
All of the other healthcare organisations here in Portland, Oregon have stopped taking non-emergent charity cases. We haven’t. We have increased (significantly) the amount of money earmarked to pay for the charity care that we provide.
Yes, we charge people a lot for healthcare, but most of that money goes to pay bills (staff, power, facilities,…) and the remainder goes for research, charity cases, and is given to other good causes.
I would rather that we didn’t have to charge because Universal Healthcare should be a right, not a privilege.
Z.
January 31st, 2006 at 2:58 pm
RIGHT savings account what’s that? The savings rate for Americans is NEGATIVE. The average family is spending $1.22 for every dollar they make. This plan is clueless. I have a better plan–save for a cheap burial or cremation. What insurance plans there are left will be destroyed by the wealthy/healthy leaving to strike out on their own. Bye bye and buy BONDS
January 31st, 2006 at 3:20 pm
Let’s face it, the Dumya was lucky. For the sake of argument and a reality check, lets imagine he was born the same guy, but happened to come out of a womb on the other side of the railroad tracks in his little TX county.
Well, we all know he didn’t have the grades to get into Yale without Pappy’s connections, stike that. Next, community college on a student loan? perhaps a stint in Viet Nam? What sort of income would he be making right now if it wasn’t for Dumb(ya) luck? I say given his intelligence about $30,000 a year max. And with those twins to raise?
Could he afford to go to the emergency room the next time he takes a spill on that bike of his? I think not.
January 31st, 2006 at 4:20 pm
Typical politician telling everyone how to live & save for retirement.The people in the government have all the answers but what works in the real world.This is the same bunch telling everyone how hot this economy is.I don’t know where they are getting the info their blowing up everyones ass but they need to go stand in line at the unemployment office for a while.Last week I was there to see more & more people either giving up looking or their benefits have run out.The only heat in this economy I’ve seen is the hot air coming out of Washington
January 31st, 2006 at 4:54 pm
Under the radar… an obvious solution to the health care problem… it works, we have proof it works and gives quality care at a reasonable cost… and guess what…the bushavicks are dismantling it as fast as they can… the system of Veteran’s Hospitals. Waits at these hospitals are a lot less than the marketplace version, staff is professional and caring, costs for treating the same number of patients a fraction of the market version hospitals and to top it off… Veteran’s Hospitals treat the same type of catastrophic illnesses as any other hospital, plus their experience in environmental effects (agent orange, gulf war syndrome–otherwise known as du poisoning, radiation effects from their secret testing of servicemen, etc.). Expanding the Veterans system to a universal system could probably be accomplished with an addition of maybe 1/2-1.5% earnings tax. Of course the insurance industry will fight this tooth and nail for the consumer rip off they are enjoying now. Marketplace medicine/insurance can remain in place those willing to pay for that service and for elective type treatments - cadillac service, facelifts, etc and/or for those of king george’s ilk who do not know what working paycheck to paycheck means. Unfortunately, most people do not even think of this as a working example of how a universal health care system would work… and be cost effective. That is why king george is gutting it as fast as he can before it dawns on anyone to point this out to the VOTERS!
January 31st, 2006 at 5:45 pm
–bush had to lay out the plan on the kitchen table, he could not put it on the family that’s where the food get put.
Let’s rename the 2nd month of the year for bush, we can call it
Fibruary.
January 31st, 2006 at 5:57 pm
Don’t you get it? bush isn’t messing up health care. no sirree… He is fixing social security. You either get wealthy or die young. Actually I prefer the first choice. Any suggestions on how this can be accomplished? Judy
January 31st, 2006 at 6:04 pm
I also wonder how many struggling middle and low income (and people are streaming ever faster from middle to low under Dubya) voted for the guy because they bought his security BS or didn’t want gays marrying or any kind of abortion. I think there are going to be a large number of them wishing they had voted differently - at least the ones who haven’t gulped down the whole pitcher of kool aid.
How any sane non wealthy person could vote for that semi literate fake cowboy is beyond me. He has systematically been shifting money from poor and middle class people to the wealthy.
This program would be a disaster, and yes, a lot of people would blow off routine checkups and treatments and then die or suffer. Universal Health Care is the way to go, it has been shown to work in other countries - but it will never, ever happen here until the Dems are in charge again.
January 31st, 2006 at 6:29 pm
Semi-literate, huh? You are too kind. Try illiterate!
January 31st, 2006 at 6:39 pm
Hey, XuSu, you just did the same thing that the rest of the extreme right does when they know they are wrong on any issue. You start name calling like that makes you right. Name calling solves nothing and only makes you appear as uninformed and unfeeling as President Bush and the Republican leadership. You should try getting your news from sources other than FOX.
January 31st, 2006 at 6:51 pm
I have an HSA and high-deductible health plan (HDHP), and it is not awful. But this system would NOT be any help at all to those who are currently uninsured.
I work for a small company that provides health insurance, so I am lucky. However, the costs have gone up at least 10% per year for several years. The company owners came to us employees and said something had to change. We looked at all our options together, and then chose a HDHP. The company was willing to make contributions to our individual HSA’s to lower the risk exposure for us employees. They are currently contributing about 60% of the deductible, leaving us with the rest. This works out to roughly equivalent coverage compared to our old health plan, and it is saving the company enough money that we can cover more employees in the future.
BUT…what if the company doesn’t make money in the future? Will they continue to provide contributions to our HSA’s? Who knows. One more way that Americans will be even more vulnerable to the ebbs and flows of this global economy.
And of course, many companies will not be generous enough to make ANY contributions, effectively sticking the employees with greatly reduced benefits, i.e. 6 times the deductible they used to have, in my case. The big corporations can then tell the employees that they should be happy to have any health insurance at all, and then they will take all the savings and add it to their bottom line. Miserable employees, happy shareholders. That sounds like the ownership society to me.
And, as I and others have said, this approach is totally useless to those who do not currently have any insurance.
Universal healthcare is needed to bring America in line with all other industrialized nations, and give us a CHANCE at gaining back our economic competitiveness. Will some Democrat stand up and be heard WITH A PLAN, please?
January 31st, 2006 at 7:42 pm
First, drug kingpin bonzo busted the labor unions and decent wages. Then the companies destroyed pension plans and kept money put aside for same. Then they laid off millions from decent paying jobs and nullified savings accounts. Theh they shipped millions of decent paying jobs overseas to their U. S. owned sweat shops. What is left are 7.50 jobs with no benefits a la Walmart. The average American barely scrapes by from week to week. What is he going to have left to put in MSA? The slightest illness costs thousands of dollars. The number of people with little or no health insurance has skyrocketed since the Re-slime-icans took complete control. Iraq had one of the best health care systems in the world. We pulverized that tiny nation and still have nothing to compare with it. Keep on voting for the thugs, keep on getting sick, keep on suffering, and mercifully, you will die and your misery will be over. At that, it might be better than living under the Retardlicans.
January 31st, 2006 at 9:56 pm
Watching Bush speak is kind of like watching a fish wriggle on dry land.
January 31st, 2006 at 10:49 pm
Having just watched the State of the Union speech, I had to admit that George Bush needs to be impeached and convicted and tarred and feathered. His continuous smirk showed his disdain for the American people and his overt lies showed his inability to change and grow as a person. His plans for our future as a country are all skewed towards the rich and at the expense of the poor. Impeach!!!
February 1st, 2006 at 1:28 am
I lost everything I had spent 47 years working to accumulate after a “good friend” told me he wanted invest in my business. “Don’t pay that high interest. “I’ll let you have anything you need”. He failed to mention that he would call the notes and take everything I had. That was in 1998. What had happened was so obvious that the IRS, with me representing myself, agreeded to an offer in compromise, that let my wife and myself pay 0.10 on the dollar and keep our house. The “Good Friend” took the rest. He thinks Dubya is great. They think alike!
February 1st, 2006 at 1:48 am
George Bush is primarily white people problem and will continue
to be as long as they continue to vote against their best interest.
Bush only received 11% of the black vote, 32% of the hispanic and
less than 40% of the asian vote. Until white people realize that
this cultral warfare is about class and not race we are going to
face difficult times in the good old usa.
February 1st, 2006 at 9:57 am
Right on, J. Epperson! What Bush and his ilk fear most is that all of us poor and working-class drudges will finally figure it out, get ourselves together politically, and vote these bums into the oblivion they deserve. That’s what is behind all the noise about gays, abortion, and increasingly, immigration–much better to keep the groundlings warring amongs themselves so they don’t notice who is really putting the screws to them. I’ve always thought that was really why MLK was killed–he was broadening his activism to include class issues and the war. Ditto for Paul Wellstone (whose death will *never* be investigated to the extent of Vince Foster’s).