Fair Care a needed health insurance break

By Dr. Manuel Figueroa



ONE of the many forms discrimination takes is in the Tax Code and those victimized by it are the people who have to purchase their own health insurance. In 2004, employer-provided and self-employed health insurance received a $155 billion tax break, but people who purchased their own health insurance received no tax break.

This problem is reaching alarming proportions as, according to the U.S. Census, the percentage of the work force covered by employer-provided insurance dropped to a new low of just 60 percent. It should go without saying that people who are forced to purchase their own health insurance shouldn't be discriminated against, but it will take an act of Congress to fix the problem.



Those of us in the Latino community feel the gravity of this discrimination even deeper, as one out of every three Latinos is uninsured, again according to the most recent U.S. Census figures. We either know someone who is uninsured, or we are uninsured ourselves.



Many in our community could be forgiven for thinking an act of Congress is a hopeless pipe- dream. But there is hope in a bill that has wide bipartisan support.



In the past few weeks with leadership and support from President Bush, Republicans and Democrats reintroduced a bill that would provide $1,000 annually to uninsured individuals, $2,000 annually to uninsured couples, and $3,000 annually to uninsured families to buy private health insurance.



This bill garnered more than 130 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives last year, ranging from conservative Republicans to liberal Democrats including several members of the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.



The bill is called "Fair Care for the Uninsured,' and it will correct the discrimination built into the tax code that has treated differently individuals who buy their own policies. The money provided under Fair Care would be advanced to workers up front so that they could have money to buy health insurance, and, according to a study done by Fiscal Associates, 18.6 million uninsured people could buy health insurance half of the total number of uninsured people in America today.



Some politicians would like to consign a large number of America's working poor to Medicaid, or some expanded version of Medicaid, the health- care program for poor Americans. Fair Care is a superior alternative because it allows people to shop for the health-care plan that meets their family's needs. It would neither bust the federal budget nor continue to choke state budgets across the country.



As a doctor in Los Angeles, I can see firsthand how much this bill would improve our country's health-care system. As a Latino-American, I can see how this would help assimilate Latino-Americans and protect them against hospitals that charge uninsured Latinos three to five times what they charge insured patients. That's why 81 percent of Latinos support this legislation and would vote for a member of Congress who supported it as well.



Fair Care would change the tax treatment of health insurance and give low-income working families without health insurance money to help them purchase private health insurance best suited for their families. The discrimination against millions of workers many of them minorities would be eliminated and millions of people would come off the uninsured rolls. Manuel Figueroa is a physician who practices family medicine in Los Angeles.