Healthcare in America: The Answer Lies in Tax Reforms

The health care issue in America is a highly volatile issue. However, one thing it has managed to do where many other bigger issues have failed is get the Republicans and Democrats to agree that health care in America is in real bad shape. Reforms in this area are the need of the hour, most Americans feel.

The agreement is, however, limited to a mere acknowledgement of the problem. It is surprising how the same people who agree on the existence of the problem have strong disagreements on how to solve it. This is a problem area that needs to be resolved, as solutions that are dependent on party ideologies and motives can never achieve the best results.

A solution to any problem will work when one is focused on the causes and the effects the problem has on the entities involved. Honesty in assessing the ground realities is very critical to ensure the solution being provided is working. In the case of the healthcare system in America, that is sadly lacking.

The problems are countless, right from the point of filling in the application form to the inaccessibility of healthcare for employees in small businesses to lack of proper doctors in certain towns. One could fill pages writing down the problems with the American healthcare system. However, that would not really help.

What would help is to start looking for a solution. The first step to doing that is identifying the good and bad things about the healthcare system. The best thing about healthcare in America is the medicine system. The latest in technology and talented doctors and nurses ensure the best medical care in the world and cutting edge research.

With such good stuff, what went wrong? Actually, it is a simple matter of cost. Hi-tech facilities cost money, so accessing them is expensive. Which is not something all Americans can afford on their own. The answer is to turn to government aid. While government aid is available, getting access to it is an exercise that would test the patience of the most patient man.

In the words of President Bush, “America's health care is too costly, it's too confusing, it leaves too many people uninsured.” So there we have it. The President himself agrees it is a mess. Which brings us to the next important question: what could be a possible solution?

The solution is simple, as most people in Congress agree – ensure more and more children are covered under healthcare. The State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) has, in fact, been bringing uninsured children from poor American families under the healthcare umbrella for the last 10 years. The program is currently due for reauthorization.

There have been proposals made as to how to achieve the goal of bringing more American children into the healthcare system. A recent bill sponsored by Max Baucus, a Democrat, and Charles Grassley, a Republican had proposed changes that would have helped increase the reach of SCHIP. However, the President is in disagreement with this bill because of the problems it could pose for poor families.

The main problem with the Baucus-Grassley bill is that it would enable children from families that are not poor to come under government aid. The aim of the bill is good – there are a number of American families who do not fall in the ‘poor’ bracket, but are not able to afford expensive private health insurance either. This bill would help these families.

However, the flipside is that many other families too would find ways to shed their expensive private insurance and opt for cheap government insurance. Since the money to support this legislation would be the taxpayer’s, the final burden would weigh back on the taxpayer.

The best way of arriving at a solution that is helpful to all would be to make use of the strong points of the existing medical system and work on its flaws. The point to start would be the federal tax code.

The federal tax code puts in place a system whereby people buying health insurance on their own do not receive any tax benefits. The people that receive health insurance through their jobs receive large tax benefits. President Bush’s solution is simple: have a plan in place that provides a standard tax benefit to all regardless of the source of their insurance. The amount being proposed is a $15,000 tax benefit.

Reforms in this area would provide the much needed impetus to a healthy healthcare system. All of America would benefit, and that could be the best thing to have happened to the healthcare system in a long time.