| Subject: health care ranting starts here |
Author:
krz
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Date Posted: 10/14/04 10:04:54am
(from the postings on the economics letter by tz with response by pjk)
>Entitlement reform is the most important fiscal
>challenge facing the country, yet Kerry's approach has
>been to deny that any fix is needed. Indeed, Kerry
>criticized the recent Medicare expansion for not being
>large enough.
(pjk)
I think the "most important" status is debatable - but let's not quibble. I think his approach to health care will save a lot of money in the long run. When Colorado passed its budget last year the Republicans decided to cut pre-natal care for immigrant mothers. The cost was somethinglike $750 per mother in savings. But the long term cost as reported by the conservative Rocky Mountain News was $17,000. I think this letter points at the short term costs and ignores the longterm savings.
krz
Based on what I heard in teh debate last night, I'm actually concerned about the financial viability and unintended consequences of the Kerry health care plan. Specifically, Kerry talked about federalizing Medicaid to allow more enrollees.
I've tried hard in the debate not to 'vote my pocketbook' - Geo and I pay plenty in taxes, and both of us feel blessed to be able to contribue to the necessary workings of this country. We also believe this gives us say in how the monies get spent - (by the way, Geo did a very nice break down of the impact of the 'middle class tax cut' on our income taxes awhile back. Please note, we are not in the familes making over $200K that Kerry wants to 'roll back'. We saw very minimal change in our taxes as a result of said break.)
I will speak wtih my pocketbook on this one, however. Because Medicaid is a federally mandated, but state funded/implemented program - states have great latitude in how they structure eligibility for these programs. WI in particular is very generous with its enrollment - other states much less so. In WI we pay more taxes to allow this flexibility. Danny receives Medicaid, because eligibiltiy in this state is not based on the assets of the family but the assets of the recipient (Dan - who we make very sure has no assets, no savings account, no educational fund, nothing). Danny's medical expenses if we do not have Medicaid would result in serious financial hardship for our family - on the order of tens of thousands of dollars uncovered by insurance(and we've had 3 serious hospital admissions, 2 elective orthopedic surgical procedures with multiple overnights, and 3 elective surgical day procedures not to mention the ongoing specialist needs). Federalizing the Medicaid program will remove the state's ability to choose how the monies are spent. In the debate last night, that pretty much turned into a deal breaker for me.
I'll start another rant on 'choice' later.
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