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President Bush's Health Care Proposal Carefully Constructed To Care For The Rich & Maneuver Costs Onto Middleclass Working Americans - Are You Surprised? - RI10
President Bush’s
Health Care
Proposal Carefully
Constructed To
Care For The Rich
& Maneuver Costs
Onto Middleclass
Working Americans
- Are You Surprised?
- RI10
Originally Published on January 25, 2007, during George W. Bush's administration: (H: 341)
Tabacco: Better Health Care For The Rich, Paid For By The Working People! It’s about time! Don’t you just love Republican presidents? They are always looking out for the financial interests of the people, who can afford
to their Reelection Committees and under-the-table to private Swiss bank accounts.
Critics: New Bush Proposals Shift More
Health Care Costs onto Working Americans
Wednesday, January 24th, 2007
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/24/1535212
Health care advocates are heavily criticizing Bush’s health plan. They say that it actually shifts more of the cost of health care onto working Americans, imposes a new tax on those that already have health care and does nothing to hold down skyrocketing health care costs. We speak with Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program. [includes rush transcript]
Bush also unveiled his plan to address the health care crisis in this country by changing the tax code. He proposed replacing the current tax break for employer-sponsored health insurance with a standard tax deduction for health insurance coverage. He claims that this will encourage more people not covered by medical insurance to buy a plan and discourage others from keeping the most costly health care plans. Bush’s plan would also divert federal aid from public hospitals in an effort to move the uninsured into private health coverage.
* President Bush.
Tabacco: To My INSANE READERS ONLY – Were you expecting something different from George W. Bush? Help for the Middleclass for example? Fairness? A break for those, who need it most? How about COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATISM? Even Bush doesn’t utter that phrase anymore!
With us now from Boston is Dr. Steffie Woolhandler.
* Dr. Steffie Woolhandler. Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard University and co-director of the Harvard Medical School General Internal Medicine Fellowship program. She is a co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program.
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
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AMY GOODMAN: President Bush also unveiled his plan to address the healthcare crisis in this country by changing the tax code. He proposed replacing the current tax break for employer-sponsored health insurance with a standard tax deduction for health insurance coverage. He claims this will encourage more people not covered by medical insurance to buy a plan and discourage others from keeping the most costly healthcare plans. Bush's plan would also divert federal aid from public hospitals in an effort to move the uninsured into private health coverage.
Tabacco: Flat or Regressive Taxes help the Rich, not the Middleclass – just like “FairTax”. Likewise Flat or Regressive Tax Breaks or Deductions!
Tabacco: Would you buy a Used Car from this man?
AMY GOODMAN: Healthcare advocates are criticizing Bush's plan and point out it does not expand coverage for the uninsured. They say it actually shifts more of the cost of healthcare onto working Americans and poses a new tax on those that already have healthcare and does nothing to hold down skyrocketing healthcare costs.
With us now from Boston is Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard University, co-director of Harvard Medical School General Internal Medicine Fellowship program. Doctor Woolhandler is also co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program. Welcome to Democracy Now!
DR. STEFFIE WOOLHANDLER: Glad to be here.
AMY GOODMAN: Your response to President Bush's proposals?
AMY GOODMAN: But could you address each point, since this will now become what is debated -- though, of course, you support universal healthcare -- what President Bush is suggesting?
DR. STEFFIE WOOLHANDLER: Sure. Well, the tax deductions will be quite expensive initially, about $30 billion to $40 billion, and virtually all of the benefit will go to the wealthiest, because the value of a tax deduction is dependent on your tax bracket.
So, whenever you do tax deductions,
you're essentially handing the money
back to people in high tax brackets --
the wealthy. So that's the problem, at
least initially, with using the tax code
in this way. It's just handing money to
the wealthy and not really putting money
in the hands of low-income people
who need help paying for healthcare.
In terms of transferring money from hospitals to state governments, that's completely the wrong thing to do. Hospitals are the safety net -- not a very good safety net, but it's what we have. If you get hit by a truck today, you will be taken to a hospital and cared for, whether or not you have your insurance card in your pocket. That's the safety net.
And what Bush is going to do is take
money away from the existing safety net
without providing or guaranteeing a new
safety net. He'll hand the money to the
states, who may do something good
and may completely waste the money.
So I think that's a very bad idea, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you're actually talking about redirecting some of the $30 billion the government spends to care for people who go directly to the hospital for care and giving that money to the states?
DR. STEFFIE WOOLHANDLER: That's what he's talking about. But he'll be damaging the existing safety net, before there's a new safety net in place. And I can't agree with that. I think uninsured patients will suffer, but also insured people who show up at an emergency room will be forced to deal with the shortages of funds and personnel that this is going to create.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, you're well-known for advocating for universal healthcare. When the Democrats were in office before -- now they're back in power -- but when President Clinton was president, Hillary Rodham Clinton was key in trying to push for a reform of the healthcare system that was not about universal healthcare. What do you see is possible right now? What do you think that needs to be done? You've got the Democrats in office now. Are things really going to change?
DR. STEFFIE WOOLHANDLER: Well, we're in a much better position.
Many of the supporters of single-payer
national health insurance, people who
have signed the bills, the HR 676,
supporters of national health insurance are
now in charge of key House committees.
We're going to be able to do hearings.
We're going to be able to get information
out of the federal government, where
they've stonewalled us before for the
information we need. There's likely to
be a single-payer bill introduced into
the Senate.
AMY GOODMAN: And what would that mean? When people hear single payer now in this country, it's hardly discussed. The corporate media hardly takes it seriously. What is single payer?
DR. STEFFIE WOOLHANDLER: Right. Well, I know President Bush said he doesn't want national health insurance. That's one of the things he said last night. But what
So that's what we've been advocating. Those principles are embodied within HR 676, the single-payer bill. It's an idea that’s supported at this point by a plurality of American physicians, by many of the physicians and nursing organizations, and something that needs to be discussed and debated by the American people and by our politicians.
AMY GOODMAN: How powerful is the insurance lobby, and where does Big Pharma, the pharmaceutical industry, play into this?
So the Canadians and Europeans spend about 60 cents for every dollar that we do in healthcare. That is, the price of the exact same drugs that we take in the United States is about 40% lower in nations with national health insurance. The pharmaceutical industry knows that, and that's part of why they oppose national health insurance.
The insurance industry is a different story. You know, the private health insurance industry has huge overhead costs.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, we’re going to have to leave it there. I thank you very much for being with us, co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program, a professor at Harvard Medical School.
Tabacco: Tidbits Around Globe
Headlines for January 24, 2007
Bush Approval Rating Drops to 28%
President Bush delivered his speech amidst record opposition to his presidency. A CBS News poll shows President Bush’s overall approval rating has fallen to a new low of twenty-eight percent. More than double that number -- sixty-four percent -- disapprove of the job he’s doing. Two-thirds of Americans remain opposed to Bush’s plan to send 21,000 more troops to Iraq and seventy-two percent say he should seek congressional approval. We’ll spend the hour getting reaction to the State of the Union after headlines.
Deported Ohio Imam Ordered Released from Israeli Prison
In Israel, a military judge has ordered the release of a prominent Muslim leader deported from the United States. Fawaz Damra is the former imam at Ohio’s largest mosque. He was arrested in 2004 on charges of concealing ties to the Palestinian group Islamic Jihad. He agreed to deportation last year rather than face new terror charges. Israeli authorities immediately detained Damra after his deportation to the West Bank earlier this month. In ordering Damra’s release, the Israeli military judge said there is insufficient evidence to hold him any longer.
DNA Testing Exonerates Two Prisoners
Two prisoners in separate cases are both newly-freed men today after DNA tests cleared them of their convictions. In Georgia, Willie ‘Pete’ Williams was set free Tuesday after DNA evidence overturned a rape conviction that had jailed him for nearly twenty-two years. His release came just hours after another convict, Roy Brown, was released here in New York State. Brown was sent to jail fifteen years ago following his conviction for rape and murder. He was exonerated mostly due to his own efforts. Working from his jail cell, Brown gathered evidence to accuse the brother of the victim's boyfriend of the crime. When the man committed suicide, testing later proved his DNA was on the victim’s shirt the night she was killed. The Innocence Project says DNA testing has now exonerated nearly two hundred people across the nation.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/24/1533211
Tabacco: I consider myself both a funnel and a filter. I funnel information, not readily available on the Mass Media, which is ignored and/or suppressed. I filter out the irrelevancies and trivialities to save both the time and effort of my Readers and bring consternation to the enemies of Truth & Fairness! When you read Tabacco, if you don’t learn something NEW, I’ve wasted your time.
In 1981's 'Body Heat', Kathleen Turner said, "Knowledge is power".
T.A.B.A.C.C.O. (Truth About Business And Congressional Crimes Organization)
SINGLE-PAYER COMPREHENSIVE HEALTH CARE NOW!