True. In the city where I live we have four major, full care hospitals. At one time they were four separate entities. Not now. Now three of them have been absorbed into a large health care company; the fourth remains independent.
My mother’s myriad physicians are strewn across the spectrum, some practicing within the auspices of the ‘system’ and some that will only practice with the one independent. She lives a few blocks from a satellite ‘day hospital’ affiliated with the independent. When tests are ordered it would take 5 minutes to get her to the day hospital and have the testing done but the doctors ordering the tests will not share records or results with the day hospital. Its absurd that we have to go into downtown a 30 minute drive, find parking and wait for an hour to get blood work done that she’s had done two days before at the independent.
Nah. This is just a subsidy with a different nuance to it.
It’s easy, statistically, to say to a person or family “ok, if the parent(s) are X and Y ages, and you have two kids of A and B ages, then (plug into formula) you need to put $Z into your account every month. Now plug in your annual income. Income too low? OK, the government will slide part (or all) of that monthly in there for you. And if anyone in the family has special needs, you check that box, and the amount of money gets adjusted.
Then, remember that these policies have a 10K annual out of pocket maximum (or whatever). If shit then happens, the HSA account turns into a revolving credit line. So nobody gets turned away because their kids break bones in two consecutive months.
Thanks for this, I appreciate the detail on the HSA. I didn’t know exactly how they were funded and administered; I like the idea even more now.
Neither party has the conjones to just say “OK, you want good health care? It’s going to take a boost to the payroll tax. Period.”
You can’t do this by just raising taxes on the rich. There’s not enough money there.
If the ACA taught us anything it should be that raising taxes on a people making a particular income isn’t the answer.
