Free health insurance punishes the middle class?

Free health insurance to punish the middle class? (Alberta Times) Los Angeles is really a good place. If you are a citizen or have held a green card for more than five years, but do not have health insurance...

(Alberta Times)

Los Angeles is really a good place. If you are a citizen or have held a green card for more than five years, but do not have health insurance, as long as the monthly income per person does not reach 1,207 yuan, the government will provide free medical services, including general outpatient visits, specialist doctors, emergency visits, and prescription drugs, all free of charge! But the middle-class people between the rich and the poor will inevitably have a common question about this free health insurance plan: How can the debt-ridden U.S. governments at all levels have the money to provide such a generous plan, and who will ultimately pay the bill? According to the Los Angeles County Health Department, this program called "Healthy Way LA" is part of the Obama administration's "Universal Health Insurance". Currently, 24,000 people are enrolled in Los Angeles County alone. The federal government and Los Angeles County currently spend a total of 600 million yuan annually. It is expected to benefit 550,000 low-income residents in the future, which is approximately equivalent to 5.5% of the Los Angeles County population. Further estimates indicate that if 550,000 people in Los Angeles County join the program in the future, the annual expenditure will reach at least 13.75 billion yuan. This is only the cost for one place in Los Angeles County. The scope of the Obama administration’s universal health insurance covers the entire United States, and the total government expenditure will be an astronomical figure. So who will pay the bill? There are generally three ways. One is for taxpayers to pay more taxes, the other is to borrow more debt from foreigners, and the third is for the Federal Reserve to print more money to devalue the U.S. dollar. But the taxes paid by taxpayers are simply not enough to cover the huge federal deficit. To put it bluntly, the debt is being passed on to future generations. There is actually a mystery to the aforementioned monthly income threshold of 1,207 yuan. If a person works 40 hours a week and 160 hours a month, according to the federal government's minimum wage of 7.5 yuan per hour, the monthly income is 1,200 yuan, which happens to be able to enjoy free medical benefits. In other words, the $1,207 threshold is set with the federal minimum wage. However, the above conditions do not apply to California, because California state law stipulates that the basic wage is eight yuan per hour. If you work 160 hours a month and earn a monthly income of 1,280 yuan, you cannot enjoy the benefits of "Healthy Way LA". So a paradoxical situation arises. Full-time (40 hours per week) workers who earn the minimum basic wage in California must spend their own money to buy health insurance, or pay a certain percentage of the deductible for the health insurance provided by their employer. The middle class struggling on the edge of poverty not only cannot escape a dime of various taxes, but after deducting health insurance expenditures, their actual income and benefits may be worse than those of people below the 1,207 yuan monthly income threshold. Is this a punishment or an encouragement to middle-class people? In addition, health insurance purchased by yourself or your employer will at least have certain deductible thresholds and restrictions on medical treatment and medication to reduce unnecessary expenditures. However, national health insurance like "Healthy Way LA" is very convenient. There is no limit on the number of times and there is no anti-fraud mechanism. There is still a big question mark whether it will waste medical resources. National health insurance is of course a good thing. It is the ultimate responsibility of the government to ensure that people who cannot afford medical treatment can receive proper medical care. But for the United States, which is heavily in debt, universal health insurance is currently just an ideal. The government can only do what it can. It is clear that if it has to work hard without money, it will drag down more people. The Obama administration announced last weekend that the long-term care (CLASS) program in the health care reform plan would be canceled due to insufficient funding, which is an example of this.