Is Universal Health Care Cheap?

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act have begun to take effect among us the people in slow, subtle, incremental changes. How will this new universal health care affect you and your family? Will you fare better under this new style of health insurance delivery or will it cost you more in money and in time?

It remains too soon to tell how this will play out over the next few years, but the cost will continue to creep upward with fewer healthcare services being delivered. More changes that are forthcoming effective January 1, 2013:

1.    There will be a two thousand five hundred dollar cap on all contributions to flexible health insurance spending accounts per individual, per year

2.    The tax deduction that employers receive for subsidizing the health care prescription medication costs of their employees who are eligible for Medicare Part D is eliminated

3.    A new 2.9% excise tax on the sale of medical devices becomes effective. Items such as glasses and hearing aids are exempt

4.    Hospital insurance tax increases by .09% for individuals earning two hundred thousand dollars or more and for families earning two hundred fifty thousand dollars or more

5.    Requirements on all health insurance providers to implement uniform standards for exchanging health insurance information by electronic communication, to reduce administrative costs

6.    The threshold for claiming itemized deductions for health insurance expenses increases to ten percent of your Internal Revenue Service Form 1040 adjusted gross income.

7.    Individuals currently over sixty-five by 2013 can continue at the rate of 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income until January 1, 2016

The current law will reduce medical health insurance services and medical health care services to all individuals who are involved with Medicare health insurance and Medicaid health insurance. These individuals, along with the remainder of us the people will be facing fewer health care services, longer waiting periods, a reduction in medical technology, and in some cases refusal of health care services.

The current health insurance bill will begin by imposing a one percent surcharge on all income earners in the top one percent bracket in the country. This surcharge tax will also be imposed on all individuals with an income of two hundred eighty thousand dollars and families earning three hundred fifty thousand dollars. Now there is a brilliant concerning health insurance and the move amid the worst recession in history. Current employers will continue to freeze any hiring practices until this is all ironed out.