LTE: Expanding health care a good use of tax dollars
Tom Burnett and Paul Nachman recently wrote an column questioning the expansion of Medicaid (MedEx). MedEx gives health care to people making $16,750 per year or less. Since MedEx costs $9,700/person/year, these hardworking, minimum-wage workers can’t afford health care on their own. They point out that this costs taxpayers about $1,100/average family/year, and imply that most families would rather keep that money.
The fact is we pay for their health care anyway. Without MedEx, hospitals and doctors ethically must treat these people for free, and that raises everyone else’s health care premiums to cover those losses. Medicaid expansion allows these people to get health care with dignity, rather than via handouts. Most importantly, it encourages people to routinely visit their doctors and better manage high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer detection, etc. This makes MedEx cheaper than no MedEx.
Alternatively, we could pay these workers a sufficient wage so that they could buy health care on their own, or even better, give health care to everyone like every other industrialized nation does. Let everyone work, and garner the same respect.
Do we really think low-wage earners don’t deserve health care? Should they lose their lives, their houses, ranches, cars for any serious illness? Do they deserve to live in continual fear of high blood pressure, cancer, expensive medicine, or kidney disease?
Chipping in, we can give one in ten Montanans this peace of mind. But paid via income tax, the wealthy pay more, and the rest pay less. With no MedEx, everyone pays the same increase in their premiums. I can’t think of a better use of my money than helping my fellow Montanans.
Regarding abuse, some presidents get out of war with fake bone spurs, and others wile wartime away flying jets for fun in the Air National Guard. Bother them, not working Montanans.
Steven Eiger