To the editor:
Imagine finding out you're paying 19.5% of your income just for healthcare. Sounds pretty steep, right?
Let's break it down: Say you're making around $60,000 a year, which is about $6,000 above the median household income for Missouri's 8th District. Now, if you're lucky, your job helps cover your healthcare, which will total around $26,000 a year. Here's how: Your employer kicks in about $16,000 towards your healthcare premiums, which total about $22,000, according to studies from the Kaiser Family Foundation. You're on the hook for the $6,000 difference. Plus, there's a $4,000 deductible — and if you've got kids who need to visit the ER, that deductible disappears real quick.
Don't forget, there's also the Medicare tax, which takes another 2.9% of your income. So, when you add it all up, you're spending around $11,700 out of your pocket on healthcare, or 19.5% of your income.
If you're not working or your job doesn't offer health benefits, you might look into the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which could lower your monthly premiums and deductibles with some help from Uncle Sam, kind of like how an employer might help out. But without the ACA, you're left without any health coverage. And if a big medical emergency hits, you could lose everything you've saved, even your home, to bankruptcy.
Folks, this is an outrage. Healthcare shouldn’t cost as much as a mortgage.
Looking at the bigger picture, the U.S. spends about $12,500 per person each year on healthcare. That's way more than other countries like Canada, where they spend around $6,300 per person, and everyone is covered, no matter their income. (The average among industrialized nations is about $5,000 per year.) It makes you wonder if we're really getting our money's worth, especially when no other country is rushing to copy our system.
We deserve better.
I'm pushing for a single-payer universal healthcare system where everyone is covered, without worrying about network charges, losing coverage if you lose your job, or risking your home if you get sick. I want to kick insurance companies out of the healthcare business and take their 31% administrative costs with them. Republicans struggle to cut our taxes, but they completely ignore the 19.5% we’re already paying. I say, let’s cut the taxes that really matter and get better healthcare in the deal.
