Tuesday, September 4, 2012

How to fund health care in America

As a Danish and Swedish pensioner I get annual tax returns which reveal differences between those countries and the United State. For one, my Danish and Swedish tax forms are one page, not half a dozen schedules and a thick, incomprehensible book of  instructions and rules. In Denmark there's a line for the health tax. It's 8 percent and finances the national health system. We should take the burden of providing health benefits off the backs of employers and establish a trust fund, like social security is supposed to be-- a separate tax everyone pays. National Health programs are, like the VA and Medicaid, more efficient than what we have today. My Michigan pension benefit got turned into a Medicare "Advantage" program which costs more and buries us in paperwork. In Denmark, Sweden, and Scotland we never got a medical bill, zero paperwork. Just medical care. My Swedish tax was steep, but now I get a small Swedish pension. Unfortunately, both the Swedish and Danish pensions, small as they are, are penalized 50%, the amount taken off my Social Security, and I am taxed on the full amount, so I'm taxed in effect 65%. No one in America is taxed more than my rate. Romney's 13% income tax is a joke, a bad one.

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