Health Insurance Proposals from Bush, Children’s Defense Fund

President Bush is offering a new proposal for health insurance reform, with a perk for the relatively wealthy and a punishment for the working middle-class.
Bush suggests that those who pay for their insurance out-of-pocket receive $15,000 tax-deduction. At the same time, those who receive health insurance through an employer would have to pay taxes on coverage over $15,000. Who is rewarded by this proposal? Those who can afford to pay out-of-pocket for health insurance. Who is punished? Those who receive coverage through their employer. (And who is totally neglected? People who are too poor to pay for insurance and do not receive insurance from employers; i.e. the people most in need!)

Bush’s proposal is in sharp contrast to the approach the Children’s Defense Fund is promoting. CDF is focused on those approximately 9 million children in this country who do not have health insurance. The CDF proposal is to create a federal health insurance program that would be available to all children in the U.S. and that would be free to those families that cannot afford to pay. The program would be easy for families to use: parents would have multiple opportunities to sign their children up, and children receiving certain federal benefits would automatically be enrolled.

So far it does not seem that there is legislation in Congress that matches the CDF plan, but there is pressure building for developing a policy that would cover uninsured children.