Letters to the Editor
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Sarah Brice
You believed who?
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us census data on poverty level 1959-2006
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/histpov/hstpov13.html
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@Sarah the Mandate
Hi Sarah, I live in MA, so mandated healthcare is a legacy of Mitt Romney. There are people right at the border line as you described and these people are falling through the cracks. It hasn't done anything to reduce healthcare costs as far as I can tell. So I agree with what you have said, though I've also heard Hillary at debates saying that somehow aggregate costs will come down and everybody will get affordable coverage. Could work.
The truth is, I think the healthplans from both Hillary and Obama are seriously flawed. Even Edwards's plan with all it's good points, isn't too convincing to me. I suppose I agree with Elizabeth Edwards in that we need a push for universal single payer. More people will have to find out that they can't afford plans that don't cover them before we can get over the 'socialist' label and the 'you won't get coverage' fear mongering.
And let's not forget that the 50,000 is subject to taxes (Federal, state and SSI).
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Mandates
I agree that health insurance should not be mandated... just so long as those who choose to remain uninsured understand that should they become seriously ill, they will be required to pay all of their own medical expenses. They will be required to forfeit all of their assets, home, car, savings, retirement plans, etc. before becoming eligible for government support such as medicaid. And then, should they subsequently become well enough to return to work, they will still be responsible for paying the outstanding portion of their medical bills that inevitably will not have been covered even by all of their assets, so their wages will be garnished at that point until all bills are paid. This would be especially true for young people who have not yet acquired sufficient assets to approach covering their medical bills. Perhaps it would even be necessary to require their heirs, spouse and/or children, to inherit the responsibility for paying off those bills. Only fair I would say.
I certainly hope that those who choose to remain uninsured and thereby raise the insurance costs for everyone else, don't expect someone else (i.e., strangers) to be subsidizing their medical costs should they become ill. Now, of course, even given the above, if the young and healthy opt out of medical insurance, the risk pool becomes untenable. Those responsible enough to purchase insurance will still be penalized with exorbitant rates to cover the cost of medical bills for those who feel they will be "lucky" enough not to get sick.
If all of this appeals to you, by all means, vote Obama.
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@ AKA Smith
You wrote to me:
@ Sarah Brice
You have obviously never been really poor or you would know two things:.
Sir you do not know me. You do not know my life or my circumstances. You also do not deserve an answer for your obviously demeaning and condescending statement, but I will give you one.
I do know what it is like to be poor. I was raised for most of my life, poor, then as time went on, my parents worked their way up the ladder to a good, blue color way of life, but money for them or us was never plentiful. No one got to college on my parents dime; we paid our own way, just as we paid for all our living expenses from the day we were graduated from high school and if we lived at home, we paid room and board, an unheard of concept today. I also carried my own life, health and auto insurance and maintenance on my meager, minimum wage salary from the day I turned 18 in 1974. You could do that then on $2.50/hour.
My father was killed by his job, working, unprotected from chemicals that are directly linked with a specific and thankfully, now a treatable and curable type of leukemia. When he developed it, there was no treatment, just palliative care and that was in 1993!! The poor bastard worked over 30 years for the same company and union, without EVER taking a sick day! That company and union screwed him and a few others out of a decent pension, by some quirk in their accounting practices that thankfully for the others who worked there and bravery of my father and two other men sued to ensure no one else would be hurt as they were. He was also a veteran of the Korean war who came back to a country that had no jobs for vets programs, no set asides, nothing. For his sacrifice, we got a flag and a check for $75.00 from the VFW when he died.
When our son was born, we went from a couple with several thousand dollars in the bank and my husband was making a salary that could allow me to stay home and raise our son. By the time he was born, changes to my husband's job situation, caused us to budget absolutely everything including such luxury items as cloth diapers (disposable ones were too expensive for everyday use) and the service to clean them, since we had to use public facillities to wash them. We also learned to live on pasta, tuna cassaroles, breakfast for dinner, and every expense was itemized so that we had a grand total of $30.00 a week to spend on food, clothes, baby clothes, shoes, non-existant entertainment, and anything else that wasn't absolutely vital. I even left the hospital a day early so my HMO would give me the incentive check for $75.00 which we used to buy Christmas presents for our families, who, by the way never knew we were in such dire straights, because we were taught to suck it up and make the best of bad situations.
We have moved up the ladder over time, but by any measurable means, we are far from rich or even upper middle class. However, I am disabled and can no longer work, so we are back to one salary, which thankfully is a good one, but it doesn't mean luxuries abound in our life today either.
Maybe in your neck of the woods, someone said Texas, a family of 4 can live well on $50,000/year, but not in the big cities or the suburbs of the big cities in this country, expecially not in the northeast.
If you read my letter carefully, you would have noticed that I said that the government statistics state that half of the families with children earn $50,000 or LESS per year. Even with the S-Chip allowance, $40,000 or less per year in GROSS pay doesn't buy much or pay for college and it is to those families I was speaking.
My point again: If one is already living up to or over his/her earned take home income and still doesn't have much in his/her pocket the day before payday, where will those people who will be MANDATED to purchase even low cost health insurance get the money? That is the answer I have been looking for, along with what will be the penalties incurred if they don't buy insurance?
I don't support Senator Clinton, but I'm not a rabid Obamaite or whatever his supporters are called. I just hope to death that whoever the next president is, that he or she will do right by the people of this country and attempt to fix the mess that Bush and his cronies have gotten us into and are leaving for the next person to fix. Also, since no one seems to talk about those drones in Congress who have let this go on for 7 + years, hopefully the seats up for re-election will go to people who will also have the guts, determination and foresight to begin to FIX ALL OF OUR PROBLEMS.