puppetmaker: (Default)
puppetmaker ([personal profile] puppetmaker) wrote2007-01-24 10:08 am

A Rare Political Entry

I tend to keep any of my thoughts on politics off of this web log for various reasons but today is going to be an exception.

If you don't want to deal with me and my personals political views, I suggest that this is not an entry for you to read.

Fair warning.


OK when did health care become part of taxable income? Or even thought of as another thing from our paycheck that gets taxed? Considering what we have to pay in for Social Security (which I know won't be there when I come of age) and local and federal taxes, adding on another tax seems absurd. Should I just hand all but $20.00 of my paycheck over? That is the way it seems to be going.

Bush wants to penalize people for having a company that provides them with good health insurance. He is using smoke and mirrors to make it sound like a good idea. Also he wants to make the health insurance burden (paying for it) on each individual worker to pay for out of pocket rather than health insurance through companies. This would give the companies much more power to tell people with problems to go somewhere else since you would no longer have anyone at your back to help you.

He wants to tax any monies over 15,000 (for a family 7,500 for an individual) paid for health insurance. I can tell you for a fact that I have paid well over 7,500 in a year for private health insurance and over 15,000 a year for the family and a COBRA deal (which is only good for 18 months kids). So by his plan I would be taxed on money that I have already paid to the insurance company.

It boils down to in this day and age that health insurance is NOT a luxury but a necessity to keep on living. The uninsured find themselves in debt up to their eyeballs if something goes south health-wise and the insured can even find themselves filing for bankruptcy because they have used up all the monies allowed by their health insurance.

The insurance companies only want to insure healthy people because it doesn't cost them much to do so. Once you are sick or have a condition that might need further medical attention, they want nothing more to do with you and will figure out any way to not pay you for the care you received. And G-d help you if you are pregnant or have kids. Kids cost a lot of money to raise so they are healthy.

Now Bush is trying to give big companies a way out of paying for health insurance. Again the way he is doing it is very sneaky but it is there.

And medical savings accounts are not the way to go. It just mathematically doesn't work. Especially since you lose the money you put in the next year if you don't use it. Also once they are depleted that's it. You have no recourse to find funds for the medical help you need to stay alive.

This is not healthcare reform but "let's see how we can screw the middle class this week so they can join the poor and get it over with" and it is so wrong.

I am writing my congressmen and Senators with my concerns. I strongly suggest you do the same before we all see another line of money being taken out of our paychecks.



I am grateful that we have health insurance with pretty good coverage.

Self Employment and this issue

[identity profile] theresamather.livejournal.com 2007-01-24 03:46 pm (UTC)(link)
Being self-employed, I can only write off 70% of my health insurance premiums. The other 30% I get taxed on. Bleh!

Re: Self Employment and this issue

[identity profile] puppetmaker40.livejournal.com 2007-01-24 04:11 pm (UTC)(link)
So you have to spend money on money that you are spending.

See that just doesn't work for me and seems highly unfair for you.

The way the system of health care is in America, you can't afford not to have health insurance which makes it a necessity not a luxtury like El Presidenta seems to think it is. Of course he doesn't have to pay ANYTHING for healthcare since he is a government employee. He also doesn't have to pay Social Security either.

Re: Self Employment and this issue

[identity profile] theresamather.livejournal.com 2007-01-24 05:24 pm (UTC)(link)
I pay both halves of Social Security and Medicare off the top, not the adjusted gross, so that's 16.3% right off the top, plus regular income tax. Every time Bush has made a speech about everything the administration has done to help small business I ask myself what exactly he's talking about, 'cause I sure as hell don't know. :P

Re: Self Employment and this issue

[identity profile] puppetmaker40.livejournal.com 2007-01-24 06:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Sing it Sister!

My husband is a business unto himself since he is a writer. Has his own company and an accountant that tries to keep the books in order but it still is such a pain each "quarter" to come up with the moola that the government insists they need.

Small Business is getting screwed on both ends right now?