Help me respond to this loyal Bushie's LTTE on SCHIP

[NewJeffCT]

Thanks! I know getting a $15,000 tax break isn't going to help you very much if you have to shell out $1,000 a month (or more) for insurance and then have to wait until April 15 to get your tax break...

Here is the letter
>>>
Regarding the Oct. 10 editorial <"Override Health Care Veto"> on the State Children's Health Insurance Program: President Bush strongly supports SCHIP as a way to help children whose families cannot afford private health insurance but do not qualify for Medicaid. Since February he has been calling for a 20 percent increase in funding.

Unfortunately, legislation passed by Congress expands this important safety net far beyond its intended purpose. It would encourage middle-class families - some earning more than $80,000 per year - to move their children from private health insurance to this public assistance program. This expansion of government-run health care is financed by imposing new taxes on those who can least afford it.

We have a better idea. Let's find and enroll the 500,000 kids already eligible for SCHIP who haven't signed up. Then let's make health insurance more affordable for all Americans. For starters, President Bush wants to give every American family a $15,000 tax break for purchasing health insurance, which according to the Lewin Group would allow nearly 20 million more Americans to obtain health insurance.

The administration is committed to working with Congress to renew the SCHIP program for the truly needy and make health coverage more affordable and available.

Tevi D. Troy
Deputy Secretary
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Washington, D.C.

http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/letters/hc-lets1017.artoct17,0,947709.story?page=
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[unpossibles]

1. not sure if this helps, but here are some links to info

http://www.factcheck.org/bushs_false_claims_about_childrens_health_insurance.html

President Bush gave a false description of proposed legislation to expand the 10-year-old federal program to provide health insurance for children in low-income working families.

He said it "would result" in covering children in families with incomes up to $83,000 per year, which isn't true. The Urban Institute estimated that 70 percent of children who would gain coverage are in families earning half that amount, and the bill contains no requirement for setting income eligibility caps any higher than what's in the current law. (The compromise bill that was released a few days after Bush's press conference does rescind an administration effort to block New York state from increasing its eligibility cap to that level.)

He also said the program was "meant to help poor children," when in fact Congress stated that it was meant to expand insurance coverage beyond the poor and to cover millions of "low-income" children who were well above the poverty line. Under current law most states cover children at twice or even three times the official poverty level.

The president also says Congress' expansion is a step toward government-run health care for all. It's true that some children and families with private insurance are expected to shift to the government program. But the Congressional Budget Office estimates that such a shift is relatively low considering the number of uninsured these bills would reach.

Also:

• 300% of the poverty line (the mark which Bill Kristol used) for a family of four is $60,000.

• Between 2006 and 2007, health insurance premiums increased an average of 6.1%. The rate of increase was nearly twice the amount of the 3.7% in growth seen in worker’s earnings for the same period of time, and almost three times the 2.6% rise in inflation (fuel and food are not included in core inflation figures, which have risen 12.7% and 5.6% increases respectively)

• The average annual cost of $12,106 for Family Health Care Coverage includes only the cost of Health Insurance premiums. Additional out of pocket costs paid by the insurance buyers such as deductibles, cost-sharing, co-pays, and prescriptions are not included in this amount. The per capita average is $5,711 which bumps that up to just over $20,000 for the hypothetical family of four.

[NewJeffCT]

2. Thanks

good information

[NMDemDist2]

3. I may be a little fuzzy on this but

if you make $80K a year, you probably have insurance through your employer. Let's take the Frost family instead, but we'll give them a raise to $50K a year for convenience's sake.

OK our family of 4 at $50K pays about $6700 in taxes (not including payroll taxes) which leaves them a monthly income of $3607 a month. Before FICA mind you, and if you are self employed that doubles your FICA costs. about 15% actually, so now you're down to $3065 a month before you pay local and state taxes.

Now the 'tax break' offered, is that a deduction or a credit?

A credit is a dollar-for-dollar reduction of the taxes you owe. A $100 credit means you pay $100 less in taxes. A deduction reduces the taxes you owe by a percent of every dollar you're allowed to deduct.

You calculate the worth of your deduction by multiplying your marginal (or top) tax rate by the amount of the deduction. If you're in the 25 percent tax bracket, a $100 deduction means you'll pay $25 less in taxes (0.25 times $100). http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/money101/lesson18/index.htm

so out of the $3065 a month our fictional family would (on the average) pay $6772 a year for a family plan http://www.ahrq.gov/news/press/pr2002/insprepr.htm if they had no preexisting conditions and could get insurance.

so now our fictional family's income is $2500 a month. to cover housing, food, gas and everything else. the Average cost of housing and utilities (assuming a 3 bedroom apartment) is $1056, the average car payment is $378 and we'll assume they have two, the average food cost is $874 (per the USDA)the average credit card payment is $200 our little family is already paying $380 more than their income before they buy any gasoline.

How is this gonna work again? where will they find the cash to pay for insurance? You know it's gonna be the first thing they have to let go.

[NewJeffCT]

4. Thanks

I got a good link from factcheck.org as well...

http://www.factcheck.org/bushs_false_claims_about_childrens_health_insurance.html

[Jim__]

5. A $15,000 per year tax break for every American family is a good idea, but ...

How do we pay for it? Do we just 'borrow' the money and pass the cost on to our grand children?

I believe there are about 100 million American families, so $15,000 times 100 million winds up costing the government far in excess of what the current SCHIP bill would cost.

[NewJeffCT]

6. translates to about $1.5 trillion per year

quite a lot of money.

[bonito]

7. Kick