McChurch - Avoiding the Health Care Crisis

(The most visible evidence of poverty in our nation is not in the clothes we wear nor the car we drive…It is in the difference between the care received by those with health care packages and those on government subsidies…

We are asking those who have premier health care packages to vote on universal parity at a time when health care packages have become a symbol of success…It ain’t gonna happen! The cost of spreading health care throughout the population will be to reduce the elitist status of the premier plans, rendering moot the label, “Upper Middle Class.”

As for excluding from taxable income up to $15,000 of company-provided health care costs, that benefit already is not taxable income…Also, medical insurance costs by individuals is deductible…So what is new here?

It would be wise of McChurch, if it wishes to reach people where they are, to convict its congregants of smugness regarding their health plans and begin crusading for universal coverage…

Stan Moody, author of “Crisis in Evangelical Scholarship” and “McChurched: 300 Million Served and Still Hungry.”)

One family-values issue still ignored

By J. Jeff Hays - Evansville Courier & Press, Opinion
Wednesday, April 11, 2007 - Web Link

The No. 1 family-values issue in next year's presidential election will be affordable, accessible and universal health care. The candidate with a workable plan will be the next president.

Steve Early, a Courier & Press Advisory Editorial Board member, in his comments March 23, praises President Bush's meager attempt to address this issue. As Early explains it, Bush would exclude from taxable income up to $15,000 of company-provided health care costs and give a similar $15,000 tax deduction to those who purchase their own insurance.

Is this the best George W. Bush can do after six years? The idea does have some merit. It would eliminate those so-called Cadillac health plans that pay for fancy eyeglasses and hair transplants.

Job-related health insurance started during World War II when wages were frozen.

Businesses sidestepped this by offering fully paid health insurance. The war ended, but job-based insurance stuck. Now is the time to set it free.

Early says Democrats should not offer any grandiose plans to fix our health care dilemma. He warns that such efforts could lead us into bankruptcy a condition that, he says, the new Democratic majority wants to lead us to.

Our present health care non-plan costs Americans a third more per capita than that of any other industrialized nation. What do we get for all this money? We get higher infant mortality rates, shorter lifespans, and 47 million men women and children with no coverage at all.

Expanding Medicare is a simple, fair and workable solution. It would eliminate insurance profits and administrative costs. An enlarged Medicare would have the muscle to negotiate lower drug prices. Doctors could eliminate at least one or two staff members who spend their time sorting through the fine print of the 1,500 different policies. Most of the fine print tells what they are not going to cover anyway.

Expanded Medicare would not bankrupt America as Early claims, but would give all Americans health care and the same peace of mind enjoyed by citizens in other industrialized nations. Now, that's a family-values issue.