Costs Are Too High
With sweeping changes proposed in both California and Massachusetts, medical coverage has been topping the news, and appears to be a major factor in upcoming elections. Sadly, even with many state-funded programs,
family health insurance is still well out of reach for many low-income families.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's new plan has made a splash in the media. He proposes a statewide plan expanding the Medi-Cal welfare medical payment system and imposing new taxes on employers, doctors and hospitals to pay for additional subsidies.
Reason Magazine sees this as making Californians "wards of the state," but there aren't any alternatives out there for low-income families who want to provide medical coverage for their loved ones.
The "better way" suggested in the article is that "every Californian who can afford health insurance [should] buy at least enough to cover catastrophic medical expenses." But "the minimum health insurance benefit must be a $5,000 deductible plan with maximum out-of-pocket limits of $7,500 per person and $10,000 per family."
Facts on:
Family Health Insurance
Did you know...
A full 13% of all American families are known to live below the poverty line.
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But, with low-income families making around $30,000 dollars a year, paying 1/3 of your yearly income for family health insurance is inconceivable. A full 13% of all American families are known to live below the poverty line; this means that 37.0 million people were below the official poverty thresholds in 2004, not counting the millions of undocumented immigrants currently straining the medical system. The poverty rate in the United States may be described as one of the highest among the post-industrialized developed world, and this is the real reason why so many can't afford the high costs of family health insurance.
Until health insurance costs mirror income, there won't be a "better way" to pay for medical coverage. In the meantime, parents will have to continue shopping online and at third-party sites for
affordable family health insurance in an effort to protect their loved ones in a time of need.
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