I have a serious question, and I'm curious why it hasn't been asked...

[jsbowden]

McCain's health care plan is a 5k tax credit.

My question is this:

How does this help families who are so poor they already don't pay taxes?

Seriously. Why hasn't one single reporter asked him or Palin this question? A five thousand dollar tax credit isn't going to give them the money to buy health insurance. We're talking about people who just worry about making rent and eating. And are the folks most likely to end up sick.

If someone has, and I missed it, what was the answer?

The rich stay healthy and the sick stay poor...
U2

Comments

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure it doesn't help those people. It also doesn't help the people who can no longer afford health care once pre-tax healthcare benefit gets taxed. But it looks like doing something about the problem, it raises money without an obvious tax (because McCain wants to appear to not be raising taxes, when he knows he has to generate income somehow), and it does provide benefit to people above a certain level of income who can afford to arrange their healthcare around the details of this particular set of rules.

What I don't get is the people who say that a universal healthcare program will make our healthcare system worse. Our hospital system can do incredible things on a case by case basis, but overall, we are number 42 when it comes to infant mortality, which is a nice handy stat you can use to compare the results of a healthcare system. We don't do much better on any other comparison. It would take some work to make our healthcare system worse, but our doctors do very well when you compare their personal income levels.

[cerebresque.livejournal.com]

A lot of these statistics are inaccurate for comparison.

In re infant mortality, for example, in the US, we treat neonates born prematurely to a much greater extent than virtually all other countries. Our infant mortality statistics look bad because what we record as infant mortality after attempted treatment, they record as stillbirths without ever treating.

Flaws in other common statistical comparisons and/or relevant demographic reasons for statistical differences are left as an exercise for the reader.

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

No. In comparison to central america, and africa sure. In comparison to japan, the UK, finland, denmark, etc, they are right there with us treating premature babies. It's not the bizarre preemies that kill us on numbers, it's the women who recieve zero medical care until they show up at the ER in labor that wreck our statistics.

[cerebresque.livejournal.com]

Sorry, but you are misinformed. In Canada and several European countries, for example, birth weight below 500g is automatically considered stillborn, never-alive. In the US, we try to salvage them, despite the death rate in that class being very high. In Japan, death within 24 hours of birth is classified as a miscarriage, not as infant mortality. Here, it isn't. In the EU, any baby born before 26 weeks is not considered alive. Here, they are. And so on and so forth.

This information is readily available. Go look it up.

[thette.livejournal.com]

That's not the experience I have from the NICU.

[cerebresque.livejournal.com]

Yeah? What do your rules look like, then - I have not seen specific information for Sweden?

[thette.livejournal.com]

I've seen babies weighing 400 grams get the full NICU treatment, and I've seen it be successful. By 24 weeks, premature babies all get the full treatment at regional centers. Between 22 and 24 weeks, it varies between hospitals and the parents have much to say about the level of treatment. Before 22 weeks is considered non-viable. Survival rates are "known cases" at 22 weeks, 42 percent of live births at 23 weeks, 62 percent at 24 weeks and 75 percent at 25 weeks.

"Stillborn" is defined in clinical praxis at "not having responded to 20 minutes of resuscitation". (And while I haven't been there for resuscitation of extreme prematures, I've seen the training nurses in just the regular, non-specialist labour wards get, and it's good training. I've also seen resuscitation of full term infants.) In the new law since July 2008, stillborns are legally defined according to the WHO definition (500 grams, 22 weeks or 25 cm). Before that, the law said 28 weeks and not breathing at birth, which meant that all premies who took a breath were registered. (It was a bad and fuzzy law, though, and obstetricians have complained since 1994.)