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It is not unusual for these clients to have spent $10,000 to $15,000 on medical expenses/insurance during any given year - and don't forget these are people who already have TWO separate health insurance policies.
You're a CPA, so you see this health care mess in a
different way than most people do - up close and personal, through the tax
records of your clients. So, use your special perspective, Lynn, and tell
us what your recommendations are for fixing this wholly unworkable system.
Well, that is an interesting question because I'm fortunate to see tax clients on a multitude of economic and social levels.
For the last decade, I've been involved
with several tax clinics preparing tax returns pro bono, two of which
are in an economically depressed City at the Jersey Shore. These
clients are mostly the working poor, that is they're employed full time but
earning very little - places like WalMart, Burger King, Taco Bell,to name
a few.
Medical expenses are always a topic of conversation; many of these clients are chronically ill, disabled, and, not surprisingly, many suffer from depression. Yet, they consider themselves lucky because they are managing their pain. They worry about those that cannot. I've never prepared a tax return for a WalMart/fast food restaurant employee who made more than $22,000 a year. Most do not pay into the health insurance system at these places because they can't afford the premiums and then the co-pays and deductibles. So they end up either on Medicaid,which is a government health program for the poor, and also many are eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit which is another federal program(NJ also has such a program) which gives refundable tax credits (money paid out over and above tax withholding).
So, instead of offering living wages and affordable health care, these corporate giants are able to (legally) push the responsibility of the health and welfare of their employees to the taxpayers which (of course) increases the profitability of the companies. It looks good for Wall Street...but not Main Street.So I ask: Isn't that a form of corporate welfare?
Those taxpayers represent one slice of my clientele.I also prepare tax returns for teachers, professors, police officers, security brokers, engineers, corporate executives, retirees, etc. and they offer up additional insight into our health care system. Most of them have health insurance either through employment or as retiree benefits and yet the paperwork and out of pocket costs are enormous.I hear a lot of grumbling, especially from expectant and new mothers. Since these taxpayers are in the for-profit corporate health insurance industry pool, I often hear them complaining about "corporate greed".
That's when I have to explain the principals of our economic system: There is no such thing as corporate greed.A corporation's sole purpose is to maximize profit and shareholder return. Period. They must cut costs to satisfy Wall Street and the investors in their stock who are ordinary citizens, money market fund managers, internet day traders, and beneficiaries of most pension plans. They must, by charter, deny benefits for health care and annually increase premiums if they adversely affect profit. The more important question is why have we allowed this for-profit corporate system to have control (literally) over our lives for something which should be considered a basic human right?
The only answer to this question is universal single payer health care which, aside from controlling costs and increasing employment,takes the "care" of our citizens out of corporate control and puts it into a system similar to our very successful, long-running, low administrative cost Medicare program.
In his best selling book, Eating Animals, Jonathan Safran Foer writes about his in-depth investigation into our corporate controlled animal factory farms which genetically alter, incarcerate, maim, torture, and slaughter as much as 90% of our meat in America. He points out:
"What the [food] industry figured out -and this was the real revolution - is that you don't need healthy animals to make a profit. Sick animals are more profitable."
Yes, sick animals (or humans) are more profitable. So the next time you boast of making a killing on that health care stock, you are absolutely correct.
Well, you lay things out pretty clearly here, Lynn. Anything you'd like to add before we wrap this up?
The only thing I'd add to what I've already said is this:In addition to the numerous medical expenses which citizens pay for health care as I outlined in my previous answers, I also see that my tax clients are forced to pay for something known as the "Donut Hole" which is an out of pocket cost most senior citizens inevitably get caught paying thanks to the George W. Bush Medicare D prescription drug program (which, by the way,took two years to implement so the taxpayers could "fund" the pharmaceutical industry billions of dollars to think about how they could "work" it....err, I mean...how it could work). The donut hole is the thousands of dollars per year each senior citizen is forced to pay out-of-pocket for prescription drugs - all because of a well defined math equation -calculated by the drug industry.
As one client said to me recently: "I think the government just doesn't want to deal with old people any more."
Sadly, it does appear that way. Thanks so much for talking with me and sharing your perspective on our health care system, Lynn. Good luck to you. And stay healthy!
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