This diary is meant to ask all of you if you can help add to my list of ways we pay for health insurance right now.
I'm tired of MSM and more conservative people I talk with worrying about what it will cost to switch to some sort of single payer or governmental health care plan. I know this topic has been discussed a long time here, but a list of every place your personal money goes, and amounts/percentages if you have an idea, to pay for American health care right now. It's money that would not cost you more because you're already paying it out. It's going to private for-profit industry instead of directly to help Americans with health care.
On this issue, the compassionate conservative turns into a snarling beast, so all the stuff about caring for children and peace of mind, while valuable, will not help. It seems shortsighted to claim that leaning on the public once in a while "will never happen to me" but it is still where most of them are.
I'm hoping to have a fairly complete list to use as my own talking points. Here's what I have so far:
- Health Insurance. Good for you if you've got employer provided insurance. I do not. My husband and I are both in our '50's and pay about $850/month to cover ourselves with a high deductable PPO. We have two teenage/early college aged kids and we're manintaining their health insurance as long as we can or until they're working. Right now, it's $535/month to cover two healthy teens/early 20's. That's after tax dollars. And I have a fairly basic plan that allows us to easily use the coverage when we travel. No dental, no optical.
- The portion of my auto insurance that goes to bodily injury and hospitalization each year.
- The portion of my homeowners insurance that covers accidents, hospitalizations and bodily injury on my property.
- Workman's comp.
- The costs, added into EVERYTHING I purchase, that pays for employer provided health insurance. What is that percentage do you think? I know it was enough to sink GM and Chrysler, according to Republicans. But when I buy groceries or a sofa or any service, just what is the percentage of that cost that pays for someone else's health insurance? I mean, the sofa travelled from a long line of manufacturers that processed the wood or metal and all the fabrics, the company that assembled all of that into a sofa, and then the store.
Actually, when I think a bit about #5, just why don't Republicans want public health care? Wouldn't it help EVERY American company with competitive pricing if all that hidden health insurance cost was taken away?
At the end of all this, will the government raise my taxes to pay for a public plan to an amount that will be more than I'm already paying right now? I don't think so.