Yesterday we had our annual health insurance meeting at work. For the 3rd time in 5 years my company is changing insurance carrier AND the price that we have to pay is still going up. I have to pay an extra $20 a paycheck for a PPO(I wont go with an HMO but there were increases with those plans as well). On top of that it seems like what is covered the the amount the insurance carrier will pay towards a claim is less than previously offered plans.
It got me thinking that the government is leaving out important reform options in their health care reform. First I believe that a cap should be put placed on the percentage of how much premiums can increase on a yearly basis. The increase should be tied to inflation or another benchmark that would allow insurance rate increases to be more reasonable.
The second option that I consider to be very important is to make individual plans from insurance carriers tax deductible. This would happen if someone has to get insurance on their own or chooses to go on their own because their employer does not offer insurance or it is too expensive. Insurance premiums through the companies we work for are before tax premiums which makes them essentially tax deductable. Why can insurance bought on the open market be the same?
The government needs to reform health care but they are over reaching on how to do it. The part of the plan for not dropping coverage for people because of the amount of their claims and the denial of coverage for people with preexisting conditions is a given. They should add the ideas that I have outlined above to it and it the health care bill would not be so big, expensive and controversial. As usual the government is making things more difficult than it needs to be.
