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.
Vaccinate Your Kids--or Else
Maryland school officials are taking parents to court for refusing to inoculate their kids. Could other districts follow suit?
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Should parents be fined or jailed for refusing to vaccinate their children? Hundreds of parents may face both if they don't show up at court to have their children vaccinated this weekend. A Maryland school district has ordered the parents of 2,300 students to court Saturday for missing the September immunization deadline. The students, in fifth through 10th grade, failed to show proof that they had been vaccinated against chicken pox and hepatitis B, a liver disease typically transmitted through sexual intercourse or shared IV drug needles. District officials say they turned to a circuit court judge to intervene as a last resort after the students continued to show up at school. Those who appear with their parents on Saturday will be immunized. Parents who fail to appear in court could face fines or jail time. Such action is rare, but may become more common. Maryland is one of 30 states where vaccinations are mandatory, and health officials fear a growing number of parents are refusing to immunize their kids.
Data continues to demonstrate benefits from vaccinations--a report published just this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) showed the rates of death and illness from vaccine-preventable diseases like the mumps, measles and smallpox, have dropped dramatically in the United States since national vaccine recommendations were implemented, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But some parents are still reluctant to get their kids vaccinated over fears of side effects or a possible link to autism (though none has been proven). NEWSWEEK's Anna Kuchment spoke with Dr. Robert Sears, a pediatrician and author of "The Vaccine Book" (Little, Brown), about the case in Maryland and the benefits--and risks--of vaccines. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: Should states, like Maryland, have mandatory vaccination laws?
Robert Sears: I don't think they should because I view the decision to vaccinate or not as a medical decision that every parent should have the right to make for their children. Now, an exception to that would be if there's an outbreak to a disease.
Parents who choose not to vaccinate need to be responsible about that, and they need to play their role in protecting the public health when there is an outbreak. But, ultimately, I don't think states should have the right to tell parents to vaccinate--especially for diseases like chicken pox, that used to be a routine childhood disease.
The case in Maryland also includes the vaccine that protects against hepatitis B.
I think it's odd that Maryland is focusing on hepatitis B because that disease is a sexually transmitted disease. It's not something that's going to run through the school in a big epidemic, except for those kids who are practicing unsafe sex or sharing their IV drug needles. As long as children are responsible about their behavior, then the hepatitis B vaccine isn't something they really need ... Most parents would want their kids to have the hep B vaccine [eventually]. But why force it on a fifth grader when sexual activity is going to be extremely unlikely at least for the next few years?
Why do you think more parents are refusing vaccinations for their children?
I think it's a lack of access to good, unbiased information on vaccines. Everything parents have to read on the Internet is either completely anti-vaccine or it's a completely pro-vaccine site that only discusses how bad the diseases are. There's really no good place where parents can go to read a comparison of both sides of the issue.
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