Universal health care in America

by Arnie Webre, Jr.

Forty-six million Americans do not have health care of any kind, therefore, America needs universal health care for those who do not have it, as well as to drive medical care costs down over the long-term.

So what is the problem?

The real question is how to pay for it.

Democratic New York Senator Charles Rangel thought he knew how to pay for it: a surtax on the highest earning Americans, to pay for those who cannot pay for their own health care.

Rangel originally proposed to raise $540 billion over the next 10-years with a one-percent surtax from couples who made over $350,000 per year, with graduating surtaxes at the $500,000 and $1 million levels of annual income.

Additionally, the proposed legislation would charge employers to provide health care for their employees.

In one such case, a Houston small-business owner was told by her elected representative in Washington, D.C. that she would get a bill of about $366,000 to provide health insurance for all of her employees, or she would have to pay a $44,000 penalty fee and all of her employees would then automatically be included in the federal government's health care program. Her annual income was slightly over $350,000.

We certainly do not want to over-tax small businesses disproportionately, as they are the engine of growth of our economy.

Since when did America stop requiring everyone who could afford to contribute to not pull their own weight?

The current drive to universal health care in the United States is sorely needed. On the other hand, the Canadians do not pay for their universal health care system by taxing only the rich -- everyone who can pay is paying for it through personal and corporate taxes; private insurance for individuals, hospitals and health care professionals; and, additionally, some provinces use sales taxes and lotteries.

As a matter of fact, the idea to provide health care to those who cannot afford it by taxing the rich is nothing less than a cross between socialism and communism. It is also one more example of the corruption from within our decaying society, the symbiotic relationship between the voters [who want something for nothing] and the politicians [who want to insure their re-elections] who want to give it to them.

Who has not been milking America for everything it was worth over the last 45-years?

We are all complicit in this long-term fleecing of the United States.

Fortunately, it appears that a marriage of convenience between the conservative Blue Dog Democrats and Republicans has avoided the frightening method of funding mentioned above, for our needed universal health care reform. Let us maintain our vigilance until either universal health care is passed this year without charging only one select group of Americans for it, or it is defeated.

We still need universal health care, so where does that leave us?

Let us go back to the drawing board and fund this from a much larger tax base, without concern for political patronage. Everyone who can pay, pays, and everyone pulls their own weight.

We all need to contribute: businesses, tax payers, insurance companies who provide insurance to hospitals and health care professionals, the health care system -- everyone, according to their means, with the most nominal [tiny] insurance premium amounts paid by those who live under the poverty limit.

On the other hand, no American citizen who lives under the poverty limit should be turned away from medical care for financial reasons, at any time, with federal health care insurance as payer of last resort in such cases, until the patient or the patient's family can pay nominal [tiny] federal health care insurance fees.

When, and if, health care costs do come under control and the system is paying for itself (becomes cost neutral), then we might be able to consider, at that time, if those who live under the poverty level should even have to pay. However, in our current economic predicament, that does not seem to be a wise starting point for universal health care in America.

Let us just get this new health care reform bill off the ground first, and then we will see, in time, what is possible.