Monday, December 21, 2009

Equal Time

I just got a response from Sen. Johnny Isakson (my other Georgia Senator) to my my Email last week asking for the nuts and bolts of the Republicans' health care proposal. He was a co-sponsor of Sen. Bill 1099 in May of this year. It didn't get voted out of committee. I outlined some of its provisions in my post talking about the response I'd gotten from Sen. Chambliss. Much of Sen. Isakson's Email was the same description I'd gotten of it from Sen. Chambliss.

Both Senators want nothing to do with government involvement, trusting market forces to give us near universal, affordable, quality health care. Assuming you can afford to buy insurance, you will get a couple of thousand dollars credit on your tax return, a little over $5,000 if you are married - but you will also pay taxes on the amount your employer spends on a group plan. You couldn't be denied coverage by state and regional "exchanges;" but, your premium will be based on risk. I read that to mean you are going to pay a lot of money for coverage if you have a health problem.

As I said last week, this plan doesn't do anything for the very poor or the working poor.

Read for yourself:

http://www.examiner.com/x-28423-Atlanta-Headlines-Examiner~y2009m12d1-The-Republican-alternatives-Part-II

2 comments:

Lifehiker said...

But isn't that the republican health care plan? "If you don't have much money, die, pal. Just don't do it in front of me. I have feelings, you know."

Jeni said...

Dave -I trust your interpretation (Mainly cause reading stuff like that tends to make me really confused and/or go crosseyed -sometimes both!) about this health care plan. Somehow, since the govt. is involved in the planning of this, I rather suspect no matter what they do come up with, it's still gonna be a heap of money for poor people to be able to get affordable insurance.