Keep (LOSE) What You Have? Health Insurance
September 19, 2008 by Tracee Sioux
Filed under Parenting
Maybe you have health insurance and you think your job is pretty secure so “why fix what ain’t broken?”
That’s NOT the choice you’re facing this election. It’s the choice you wish you were facing. There’s a massive difference.
Employers want OUT. They don’t want to be in the business of benefits anymore.
They face the same health care inflation problem as you do. It’s going up and costing them too much money and they don’t want to deal with the dreaded insurance companies red tape anymore.
Currently there are regulations REQUIRING large corporations to insure their employees and their families if the employ over 50 people.
John McCain will throw you to The Market and analysts suggests that 20 million MORE Americans will lose their insurance.
Personally, I think its inevitable that employers are going to get out of the insurance business all together. They are already cutting back benefits. The only irreplaceable benefit they provide is that they don’t have the luxury of denying benefits to sick employees. They can’t discriminate. Its illegal.
Health Insurance Companies, or The Market (as holy and sacrosanct as the Right Hand of God, Republicans would have you believe, even as The Market crumbles right in front of our faces) is under no such restrictions. It can discriminate as much as it likes.
Who do insurance companies discriminate against? Sick people. People who already have a diagnosis.
Whose going to foot the bill for the sick people the insurance companies don’t want to insure when companies bail out?
The tax-payer. You.
Do you really want to be on the Open Market for health insurance?
No safety net.
No large pool of other people to give you bargaining power.
No requirement that they insure you.
No protection against discrimination.
No regulation requiring them to behave honorably.
Alone, without a group plan or human services representative. Shivering in the cold and . . . sick?
Think. Think. How will this really effect your family?
To find out how truly fun this is – call your insurance company and ask a question about any bill. See how much power one person has in the face of the insurance industry. Better to find out now than when your corporation informs you it cancelled its insurance policy and we haven’t set up a Universal Health Plan for you to join.
Check out this New York Times story by Bob Herbert examining how John McCain’s plan is really going to effect your life.
“A study coming out Tuesday from scholars at Columbia, Harvard, Purdue and Michigan projects that 20 million Americans who have employment-based health insurance would lose it under the McCain plan,” Herbert writes.
The net effect of the plan, the study said, “almost certainly will be to increase family costs for medical care.”
And why should he care?
Melissa McEwan, on Shakesville very rightly points out John McCain has been under the privilege of government insurance his whole life. He’s so rich his wife wears a $300,000 dress and he can’t remember how many homes he owns, so a $300,000 medical bill wouldn’t effect his family very much – why should he care if it bankrupts yours?
What Republicans don’t spend money on – Prosecuting Sex Predators terrorizing our families.
Top-Down v. Bottom-Up – Economics 101
Check this website for a fellow journalist/blogger directly affected by the healthcare system. It is costing her her home and her life.