| The American Voice
supports eliminating the current system
of tax breaks for employer-based health
insurance and replacing it with a new
national system of tax credits for
families and individuals as the best
reform option. Several benefits are
offered by such a system. Personal choice
of a wide variety of health plans would
be allowed and of health insurance
policies would achieve individual
ownership. Families and individuals, not
the employer, would be make the consumer,
thus causing health insurance companies
to tailor their plans to an increasingly
diverse group of Americans. Individuals
would be able to maintain the same
policies and coverage they enjoy in their
current plan if they change jobs or
employment status under such a new system.
Families and individuals would no longer
be at the mercy of someone else's
decisions and it would be their choice of
insurance plan and physician. They would
be able to purchase large group plans
offered by professional and trade
associations, unions or employee
organizations, or ethnic, fraternal, and
religiouis organizations instead of group
insurance concentrated in the employer-based
system.
Although some progress has
been made toward the goal of personal
ownership, Congress limits the number of
individuals and their families to make
tax free contributions to MSA's but
permits the self-employed to deduct more
of the cost of purchasing coverage.
However, burdened with regulatory
restrictions and limitations is the
current MSA law. Also, a limited reach is
given by tax deductions. Unfortunately,
today the majority of Americans have
employment-based health insurance that
they do not own, control, or choose the
kind of health plan or the scope of
benefits they require and want. The use
of funds in tax-free flexible spending
accounts (FAS's) is the only exception to
this general pattern. However,
restrictive tax policies limit the
usefulness of these accounts.
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