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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (269819)	1/23/2006 7:24:28 PM
From: combjelly	Respond to of 1583396

Health Plan to Revive Debate......................... # Bush prepares initiatives intended to make the system more efficient, but some critics say people would bear too much financial risk. By Peter G. Gosselin, Times Staff Writer WASHINGTON — President Bush is preparing to unveil a series of proposals intended to make the nation's healthcare system more efficient, but he is likely to revive a bitter debate — begun last year over Social Security — about how much of life's biggest risks Americans should bear on their own. Although many of the proposals, such as limits on medical malpractice lawsuits, are ones the president has failed to get through Congress, he plans to unveil new initiatives as part of his vision for reshaping U.S. healthcare policy, aides and advisors said. ADVERTISEMENT Among the possible initiatives: offering additional tax breaks for the use of Health Savings Accounts, and making most out-of-pocket medical spending by individuals tax-deductible. Currently, individuals must spend 7.5% of their annual incomes on healthcare before they qualify for an income tax deduction. Bush's supporters say that the changes would help tame rocketing medical costs by encouraging people to buy their own healthcare insurance and become smarter shoppers, rather than relying on employers or government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid to cover their health costs. Critics argue that Bush's expected proposals would undermine the employer-provided health insurance system that covers most working Americans. And, they say, it would encourage them to switch to the Bush-authored Health Savings Accounts, established in 2003, under which they would bear more of the financial risks of illness and injury. Just as with Bush's Social Security personal accounts proposal, the president would be seeking to persuade Americans to rely less on government-provided or employer-provided safety nets and more on themselves. He would also exhibit the kind of combativeness that has become a trademark of his time in Washington. Despite the political drubbing that the administration sustained on Social Security and over the flawed rollout of its Medicare prescription drug benefit, Bush appears eager to return to the fray. "We may be looking at the start of a fundamental shift in what we mean by health insurance, from a system where we share risks to one where it's up to individuals to make their own deals and bear their own risks," said Drew E. Altman, president of the nonpartisan California-based Kaiser Family Foundation. "The danger," Altman said, "is that this new arrangement could work out very well for some people, especially the young, the healthy and the affluent, but be very bad for the health system as a whole." The Health Savings Accounts, known as HSAs, are designed to encourage people to cover a substantial portion of their healthcare costs by opening tax-advantaged accounts from which they can pay routine medical expenses. The account must be paired with a high-deductible insurance policy to cover catastrophic medical costs. latimes.com Great. Killing off health insurance is really going to improve things.

To: Road Walker who wrote (269819)	1/24/2006 2:54:19 AM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1583396

re: "The fact that he had been silent for a year increased the impact - if he spoke out too often, it would be less dramatic. Bin Laden is no longer in operational control of al-Qa'ida, but he doesn't want to be. He sees himself as a prophet, an ideological focus, not as a strategist or commander." The "prophet" part is scary.... he could be seen as a Muslim religious martyr. Virtually forever. His stock is growing. That's exactly the intent. If he is alive, we will hear from less frequently. ted