Vaccinate Your Kids--or Else

Did you know that if McCain is elected you will have to pay income tax on the value of the medical insurance that your employer gives you? Worse still, he is offering a tax break for people who pay their own insurance, BUT only $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families.

Let's say you have a family of four. Your insurance policy costs would be at least $1,500-2,500 per month under a self-pay plan, which cost more than employer group plans. So, you pay $18,000 -$30,000 per year for insurance, and you get to deduct only $5,000 of that. If you paid $25,000 for you insurance, you would be out of pocket $20,000 per year. This is FAR WORSE than the current system, where if you are self employed you can deduct 100% of you medical insurance costs.

So, if you're not self employed, you would stick with your Employer's plan. Employer plans for a family of four have a value of $900-$1,500 per month totaling 10,800-$18,000 per year. Surprise! On April 15th, you owe tax on all of that as INCOME to you. Say your bracket is 25%, and the value of your Employer medical plan is $14,000. You will OWE THE IRS an additional $3,500, and that's ON TOP of whatever monthly premium you already pay to your employer for your insurance.

Many analysts say that McCain's new rules would encourage employers to stop offering health benefits. If that happened, then far fewer Americans would be insured than are insured today, because what family of four can afford $18,000-$30,000 out of pocket per year for self-pay health insurance?

Furthermore, McCain's plan does not require insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions of people who self-pay their insurance. People under employer group plans have all of their pre-existing conditions covered. This is a hugely unfair aspect of the current system. Insurance companies can afford to cover the pre-existing conditions of the much larger pool of people with group insurance, but they refuse to pay the pre-existing conditions on the smaller pool of self-pay customers. They have been allowed to price gouge the self-pay customers, which is a form of market manipulation that should be illegal.

So let's say one of your kids had diabetes and you have high blood pressure, then your employer stops offering insurance. You now have to buy your own, but you and your child are INELIGIBLE due to pre-existing conditions. Oh, yeah, they will let you buy the insurance, but you can't use it for any pre-existing condition until you have paid on time every month for two years. And you know what happens at one year and 11 months? You get a letter saying your policy has been cancelled. I have many patients this has happened to.

McCain's plan SUCKS.

It does nothing to help middle class working Americans afford or obtain medical insurance. In fact, it makes the current system WORSE.

Forget for a moment health issues, do you want your government dictating this kind of thing? You really have to question whether or not civil liberties I being taken away here. Despite the fact that I am very much pro-vaccine, I am dead-set against having any government dictate this kind of thing as mandatory. The state government in Maryland is really bad at this kind of thing. At the risk of making an off topic example of how much they are missing the mark, MD has more strict gun regulations regarding carry permits for upstanding citizens than any of it's surrounding states... it also has the HIGHEST violent crime rate.

More regulation on these things is usually not the right answer. Don't tolerate having your freedoms removed from.

Anyone who wishes to read all sides of the vaccination controversy can do so at Vaccination News (www.vaccinationnews.org).

All the best,
Sandy Gottstein
President, Vaccination News, A Non-Profit Corporation

This was an interesting interview, but I feel I should point out Dr. Sears answered his own question when he wondered why they were mandating Hepatitis B vaccinations for children too young to be sexually active. He notes that the Hepatitis B vaccine is reactive, particularly in adults and teenagers--therefore, it is customary to give it to infants and younger children. The age that he specifically mentioned, 5th grade, would be 10-11 years old, and therefore probably young enough to escape the more severe side effects.

Also worth noting is that Hepatitis B is a blood-borne illness that is transmitted in similar ways to HIV. It is not an exclusively sexually-transmitted disease. A child who comes in contact with the blood or bodily fluids of an infected classmate, regardless of sexual contact, is at risk of being infected. Hepatitis B also causes massive liver damage, including possible liver cancer, and opens the child up to a cocomittant infection of Hepatitis D, the most lethal of the Hepatitis complex of viruses. It doesn't seem to me at all inappropriate that childred be mandated to be vaccinated against this highly damaging disease .

All parents should vaccinate their children and im glad that at least 1 state is mandating it. There are serious diseases and illnesses and unfortunately many parents are not educated in what may happen to their child if they do not vaccinate.
My son is a survivor of bacterial meningitis which leaves children and adults with brain damage, mental and or physical disabilities if they survive. A great site to learn more is http://meningitis-angels.org .

All parents should vaccinate their children and im glad that at least 1 state is mandating it. There are serious diseases and illnesses and unfortunately many parents are not educated in what may happen to their child if they do not vaccinate.
My son is a survivor of bacterial meningitis which leaves children and adults with brain damage, mental and or physical disabilities if they survive. A great site to learn more is http://meningitis-angels.org .

Your "expert" says that the Hep B vaccine is given to newborn babies in the hospital and two more times in the first year of life. I'd like to add that it was in 1991 that the American Academy of Pediatrics enacted a new policy to recommend that all infants receive the Hep B vaccine. So in the case of High School seniors or some juniors, they may not have had the vaccine as an infant as they would have been born before the recommendation.

Obviously, having children up to date on all vaccinations makes sense, but until recently some school districts around the country did not require Hep B and Chicken Pox vaccinations. There are other vaccinations that would seem to be more of a public health threat if not received.

The primary way Hepatitis B is transmitted today in the US is through IV drug abuse and sexual contact but this is a newer statistic. Hepatitis B can be transmitted through contact with ***, saliva and blood. It is a much more robust virus than HIV. There is NO CURE for HPV. If the hepatitis doesn't kill you then the Liver cancer will. It is irresponsible to not do everything possible to prevent the transmission of this disease. There are hundreds of thousands of us healthcare and emergency care providers that are exposed to this virus just by doing our jobs. We are all vaccinated

from what i've understood about this maryland case ,(i heard it discussed over radio) with, i believe a prosecuter,who in effect admitted there was no actual law ,and said the parents and children were being charged with truency ,as had been banned from school for not getting shots,,and state was acting under color of law ,,ha ,,that dont get it ,if true ,,also said state wasnt required to tell of a waiver ,was up to parents to find out themselves.
tell you what if its true there is no legislated, written, legitimate, law ,these parents should sue the state for millions!

do the states really have a written legitimate law? or is this so called mandantory vaccination simply a declaration by some stuffed shirt burecrat acting as a dictator? also why are these parents not told there are waivers for those with religious ,moral or personal reasons for declining vaccinations?

As many times as the scientific community has flip-flopped on important health issues, why should we take the current body of knowledge as sacrosanct? Besides, many studies are deemed to be conclusive because the result is statistically significant. There are two problems with this. First, the statistically significant effect could be small when compared to the total population. Second, they cannot demonstrate causality. In fact, the idea that vaccinations alone are responsible for the eradication of these once onerous diseases is spurious at best given the simultaneous improvements in sanitation and nutrition.