You’re in a position caused by interference from the federal government, namely tax laws that make insurance tied to employment desirable when it normally wouldn’t be. Would you, for example, tolerate losing your homeowner’s or auto insurance when you left your job? Neither would I. Yet, because of an accident of history, WWII and FDR’s wage caps to be exact, health insurance became a “fringe benefit” of employment due to a tax loophole. I’d say that, had you been purchasing your own health insurance, for you and your family, you’d not be in this situation. This isn’t an indictment of you, since by accepting the “fringe benefit” you were pursuing the most rational course for your situation. Instead, it’s an indictment of the bad set of laws governing both health care and health insurance in this country.

As Stephen correctly points out, this expansion of government expenditures and authority known as SCHIP, while providing short-term relief to your family, would actually place a severe long-term burden on your children and their children, who would bear the cost of this program during their careers and hence have less, likely a lot less, with which to provide for their own families.

What needs to happen with health care is not more government, but less. The more we move health care expenditures away from the consumer, the less power the consumer has over his own destiny. You lament the insurance companies, however, before indicting them, I would ask you to remember that the insurance company that provided coverage to you never worked a day for *you*, but rather for your employer. Then, take your experience with the insurance company and extrapolate that out to a government-run health insurance system which works for “the people”, through the Congress and President. It will not be pretty, I assure you.

I realize that SCHIP would be very attractive for someone in your situation. If SCHIP were to pass, my family would easily qualify. I can tell you that most of my expenses over the past 2 years or so have been medical expenses despite having private insurance. So why don’t I want SCHIP expanded so that my family can take advantage of the program? Because I realize its a fraud. My father told me that there is no such thing as a free lunch. He was right. There’s no such thing as free healthcare either.

Healthcare is a very emotional issue, especially for those who are having health issues. I urge you to try not to look at this issue emotionally but rationally. As I mentioned in the post, we are looking at $43 trillion in unfunded liabilities for entitlement programs such as medicare, medicaid, S.S. etc. Now, this is before SCHIP or Hillary Clinton’s proposed healthcare plan. How do you suppose your children and grandchildren are going to pay for this?

I don’t know about you but I can’t wrap my head around a dollar amount that high. When the baby boomers retire, we will have more individuals recieving S.S. than workers. Your children are going to have to pay half or more of their paychecks in taxes just to fund these programs and probably won’t have anything in S.S. or these other programs for themselves.

It’s really a scary scenerio when you think about it. More than half of an individual’s income going to taxes? These are the things revolutions are made of – bloody revolutions.

I urge you to do some additional research on this topic. The links in my article would be a good starting point. There is so much more to this than meets the eye.

I wish you the best for you and your family.