Getting what you earn.

*Disclaimer* This is not unbiased. I have a candidate of choice. Not my first choice, but in this instance definitely the lesser of two evils.

I've been doing alot of research on the health plans that both Sen. McCain and Obama are setting forth.

From What I can understand, the biggest difference is this;

1. Senator Obama supports a system that would provide more government funding/control.

2. Senator Mccain supports a system that is privately run.

My issues/objections to each plan

The U.S. is not a socialist state. It's not the responsiblilty of the federal government to ensure everyone has insurance. It's the responsibility of every individual. At some point and time Americans have lost the attitude that made this nation great. Independece and self-reliance are no long valued. Everyone has their hand out waiting to see what will be given to them.

Sen. Obama's plan to fund another 17 million health care recipients comes from the tax cuts from the bush administration that are set to expire. Many of these tax cuts are for buissness and the wealthy (making over 200,000 per year). So naturally it's okay to take even more from the most heavily taxed bracket, right? to provide for lower income families. This seems like a socialist idea to me. I hardly think it's fair that many lower income families get more out of the system at tax refund time then they put into the system while people in higher tax brackets pay the majority of income tax in america. (I'm not in a higher tax bracket if everyone paid a flat tax percentage that I support I'd actually pay more taxes. But I guess I'm the only one that realizes we all owe our part, and that it's a privledge to live in the U.S.)

Don't get me wrong, I fully support windfall taxes on large companies but I don't think it's fair to overly burden families that have worked hard to do well for themselves. Generating more revenue from this higher bracket with the sole intention of providing (probably sub-standard) care for the poor is not okay.

The obama plan is one step closer to a universal government run health plan that will not be good for patients or health care workers.

The press has gone to great lengths to make people aware of the fact that Sen. Mccain plans to tax health benefits for the first time. He'll then provide a 2,500 or 5,000 tax credit to offset costs. Sen. Biden says the average cost of health insurance in america is about $12,000 per person. I don't know if this is true, personally mine cost about 2,400 for a family of three for just our premiums. I understand that I work for a hospital and I work in a smaller city so my costs will be lower than average. I'm just not sure if 12,000 a year for premiums is a correct estimate.

The government has done similar thing with our income tax for years, allowing you to claim only yourself then at the end of the year claim you deductions hoping for either a refund or a smaller tax bill. They use the money that they collect throughout the year for the operating budget and for investments. Generally these investments have panned out and the government can afford to give some people more than they've put into a system. I don't see the huge problem with the plan to generate extra cash flow without a net increase in taxes for most people.

I don't think universal health care is the answer and I don't think Giving a tax credit on a new tax make a whole lot of sense either. But given the lesser of two evils I pick Senator McCain's Health plan. It puts fewer people on government funded heatlth care and it may give the government a little more flexible cash rather than going with plan A as of late and just printing more money.

I think the answer lies in maintaining privatized insurance with better oversight. The difficult part about this is that I couldn't begin to explain what proper oversight would be. I'm not talking about jchao oversight because those fools have simply made providing good health care more difficult.

I may think I have the answer but I'm probably wrong. I was all for deregulating wall street. Let a free market society work. I can't count how many times I kept telling myself it would all work out, and it will but it'll take some governmental help and oversight which in the past I was all about preventing. I believe in capitalism but every system has it's flaws.

I hope we find a good system for our healtcare. Progress is stimulated by competition and in order to have adequate competetion I believe that the system needs to remain as privatized as possible. Unless everyone out there believes medicare and medicaid have been shining examples of how to run healthcare in America. At some point and time we all need to take responsibility for ourselves and understand that you really do get what you pay for and that we're not entitled to anything free healthcare isn't a right.

My hospital already has policies in place to help offset costs associated with uninsured/medicaid patients. We basically do everything we can within a working diagnosis that we're sure medicaid will pay for. patients will get all kinds of silly workups just in hopes that the volume of tests on a patient will somehow even out the cost, considering how much less medicaid will pay for services.

If I need to explain to you why these are negative things, and how government has screwed up health care I think you should just go vote for Obama's plan that's a step too close to universal healthcare for me.