Ten Small-Scale Reform Ideas for Obama, Man Dies from Computer Error, and Why Welfare Recipients Get Free Cell Phones
Small-scale reform ideas for Obama/Democrats. Plus, I solve pre-existing condition problems at the same time.
Man dies because computer error causes hospital radiation overdose. Not once, but on three consecutive days.
More people are overdosed in hospitals than you may think.
Why do welfare recipients receive free cell phones?
Fox News was the top cable network in primetime last week. CNN was 22nd and MSNBC was 25th.
Evidenced-based self-help. (very funny interview)
Perhaps more people watch Fox News because more people TRUST Fox News.
A recent Public Policy Polling survey found that 49% of Americans trusted Fox News, 10 points more than any other network.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/32039.html
I really like your ten ideas. This is original thinking in a field where there ordinarily is no original thinking.
It’s hard to believe that you can’t have confidence in hospital equipment and hospital personel. And that they continue to make the same mistake three days in a row! I assume this is one case where the NCPA would approve a malpractice law suit.
I don’t think the question about cell phones was actually answered. The article describes the current situation, but doesn’t provide a rational explanation of the policy.
I agree with the heading. The main problem is that you go on to use this as a pretext to do something entirely different: giving identical treatment to two different kinds of insurance. Employer-sponsored coverage is by law guaranteed issue (with prior creditable coverage) and (at least modified) community-rated.
Healthy users of work-based coverage don’t see much if any net benefit from the favorable tax treatment, at least not as a general rule. The tax break merely reimburses the additional cost of subsidizing less healthy co-workers.
Of course the less-healthy workers benefit twice– from the tax break, and from the less-than-risk-rated coverage. To extend a comparable tax break to individual purchasers, the tax credit would have to be zero for low-risk purchasers, topped by a near-100% reimbursement for any risk-driven surcharges.
To simply use the same tax credit structure for group- and individually-rated insurance would put an end to most existing employer-based coverage. You may like the idea, but many would vehemently oppose it. This puts a rather large political drag on the original goal stated in your heading for item #6.
…Of course a tax credit for individually purchased, community-rated coverage could be similar to that used for employer based coverage. Existing types of coverage that could qualify might be:
– COBRA
– HIPAA-mandated continuation coverage
– Other risk-pool coverage
– Coverage in states that mandate community rating (of with there are apparently very few purchasers at present)
These types of coverage could be given tax breaks comparable to employer-sponsored coverage without undercutting the latter.