The Problem With Arnold's "Girlie-Man" Healthcare

Recently re-elected (and newly liberal) Californian Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed an ambitious state healthcare plan to tackle the problem of the uninsured.  While anything that helps to bring care to the uninsured is positive, the plan still has huge gaps in its safety net:

Under the governor's plan, nearly 1 million middle-class people would be caught in a tough bind, those experts say: They earn too much to qualify for the insurance subsidies Schwarzenegger wants the state to provide but not enough to afford comprehensive coverage.



Only those whose yearly earnings are less than 250% of the federal poverty level — about $25,525 for individuals and $51,625 for families of four — would qualify for the proposed subsidies.



People earning more would be required by law to have, at a minimum, a high-deductible catastrophic insurance plan. Such policies, which the administration says cost about $1,200 per person a year, would not pay for anything until a patient's annual medical costs exceeded $5,000.



And families could owe as much as $5,000 more in co-payments before insurers absorbed further medical bills.

That is a crushing burden for people that make slightly more than the plan's ceiling allows.  51,000 dollars a year hardly puts one in the leagues of the "well off," if you have a family and a mortgage, you might even just be scrapping by.  Add $1,200 in coverage per-person, and then $5,000 if someone actually needs care, and you have a recipe for financial meltdown.

We can try all the creative and innovative plans we want, and it still won't change the fact that universal coverage would not only be cheaper, and better at keeping people healthy, it is also the only way to have a just and sustainable system. 

Everything else is just make-up on a pig.

tags: healthcare  california  schwarzenegger  

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