Nationwide health insurance
Federal officers recently proposed a hike in the tobacco tax to fund the State children's Health Insurance program (SCHIP) that takes initiative to health insurance for kids through checkups, vaccinations and medications. This program is designed to meet the insurance needs of the children of the middle-class families whose income falls well above the average wage rate but cannot afford costly medical facilities. As such, they can pay the subsidized premiums and the remaining cost would be borne by the states.
As such the budget for this program has been enhanced from $35 billion to $50 billion depicting the growing need of health care for kids. Needless to say, the government is not in a position to fund such a huge hike in the budget. So, the officers are trying to implement the tobacco tax to cover the shortcomings. If this tax would be implemented, the impact would be that the total tax per package of cigarette would be around 61 cents.
If this legislation passes successfully, families with an annual income of $82,600 can also be covered under the SCHIP.
However, many other oppose this proposition. As according to them, tobacco addiction cannot be stopped and it would be discriminating to tax the tobacco smokers so heavily in light of the fact that they are already being crushed. Further, the guarantee of the proper utilization of funds generated from such additional taxes is quite remote. If we look into the performance of the SCHIP so far, the success has been very meager. While in 1990?s when the SCHIP was formed, the number of uninsured children was about 10 million, in 2002, the number has decreased by only 1.5 million to 8.5 million. The reasons behind such lackluster performance are inevitable:
Lack of accountability: No particular department or officer is accountable or being admonished for non-performance. This is leading to funds arbitration.
Low quality of services offered: When compared to the private insurance firms, the quality of the Medicaid hospitals is quite alarming and there are some places where the authorities have done away with the waiting lists just to avoid checks from higher officials. This has led to chaos and confusion and favoritism.
Dynamic changes in the insurance takers: If we take a careful look at the profile of the children who opt for insurance, we come to know the fact that the number of dropouts from the insurance programs is also very huge. Owing to the above reasons of dissatisfaction, much number of children goes out of the insurance schemes just when some more number of children joins the scheme. This shows that the already existing clientele is quite dissatisfied with the services provided.
In light of these factors, many people are opposing the imposition of extra tobacco taxes for funding the SCHIP.
Nevertheless, many organizations like the PHARMA have announced its support to this proposed hike and have taken a step further to collect public consent in this matter. It has become a burning issue and many more organizations are joining the rally. PHARMA has included SCHIP in its part of prescription assessment program (PPA). PPA has been launched in April, 2005 to help million nationwide to receive free or nearly free medication.
All these bills are proposed to address one main problem concerning the uninsured and underinsured children in the nation.
Surprisingly, not only the poor people with no home or unemployed but even the working class with reasonable incomes does not care for kids insurance. In these days of high inflation, medication costs have risen so much that they need to understand the importance of insurance for a safe future of their children.
This pressing need for insurance has given rise to many debates. In Pennsylvania alone, some 2,72,000 kids are uninsured. In other places many more millions of children are uninsured or underinsured. It may be shocking to note that the dental insurance is the need of the hour. While around 33% children have not taken up any kind of insurance, of them 22% have never been to a dentist! The federal Medicaid institutes have appointments of waiting lists up to three months. The doctors have to fight the worst situations as people report to them only at times of intense need. If it happens that a dentist removes a decayed tooth, he can be sure of not seeing that kid again in the near future for many years.
The reasons for such high rates of uninsured children are namely:
1. Parents think that their children are hale and healthy and they do not need to take up any insurance plans.
2. The rising premium from the private companies is making the insurance requirements highly unaffordable.
3. The degraded performance of the federal insurance programs.
The bankers have come out with a better plan in this context. They have started health savings accounts which give tax exemption on their deposits in health saving accounts if the amount is used to cover deductible, co-pays and certain qualified health programs. The Government is also helping such bankers by increasing the tax exemption limit in health savings accounts. These health saving accounts can be useful to not only children but to all classes of people like children, working adults and retired persons. However, surveys reveal that people try to insure their kids even before they insure themselves. So, the success of this health saving accounts would amount to improved children insurance.
In places like Texas, Florida, Wisconsin and Illinois, these health savings accounts have been a grand success as the interest rates on these deposits are quite attractive to the tune of 5% to 7%. Also, many bankers in these areas have implemented these schemes with commendable victory. However, in certain states like North Jersey, Rhode Island, Hawaii and Vermont, this health saving plans are not catching the fire. This can be due to the non-availability of tax exemptions on such plans and the discouraging interest rates (approximately 2% - 4%) on the interest rates when compared to other states. Even the bankers in these states are quite negligent in this point. Less than 2% of bankers in these states are offering these saving plans. The result can be quite expectable. More number of people is uninsured in these states. The highest rate of uninsured or underinsured is in Perry County to the tune of 14.2%.
After considering all these facts, we can conclude that the best way to solve such situation is to tie up with the private sector and even the bankers to enhance the quality of the services at public affordable prices with eligibility for tax exemption. Once such a tie up is reached, the state can simply do away with the increase in federal taxes and other fake programs because quality is the basis for success - be it federal or private.
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