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Health Care For All that Helps the Economy vs. Health Care Reform that Undermines It
The House health care bill pays for itself on the backs of all but the smallest businesses with a penalty equal to 8% of payroll if they fail to provide health insurance to workers. Does this make sense in the middle of a recession that is already showing signs of a jobless recovery?
The decision by the president and Congress to keep the multi-payer health care system, a system based on private health insurance tied to employment, ensures that the bill will have a negative impact on the economy.
Recently an activist from New Jersey, Terri DiMatteo, posted a link on my FaceBook page:
First-of-Its Kind Study: Medicare for All (Single-Payer) Reform Would Be Major Stimulus for Economy
Source: www.calnurses.org
Establishing a national single-payer style healthcare reform system would provide a major stimulus for the U.S. economy by creating 2.6 million new jobs, and infusing $317 billion in new business and public revenues, with another $100 billion in wages into the U.S. . . .
I was aware of the report but it really struck me again when I compared it to the steps being considered by the Congress to pay for health care:
Cut funding to Medicare, health care for the elderly (they call it 'efficiency')
Cut funding to Medicaid, health care for the poor (again 'efficiency')
Tax employers who do not provide health insurance
Tax employee health benefits as income
Tax people who do not purchase health insurance
Tax people who make over $250,000
A national value-added (sales) tax of up to 3%
And, then there were the high profile press events with President Obama and the industry with vague promises of saving money. Promises made by such reputable corporations as the insurance and pharmaceutical industries who have consistently showed they put profits before people and who have made promises to control costs in the past that have not occurred.
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