Heard the New One About Teresa?

Is this the health care plan only an idiot would fail to support?

Kerry says he wants to help more businesses offer health care by requiring the government to pick up 75 percent of catastrophic health care costs, a plan the campaign estimates will lower premiums 10 percent on average. He would give small businesses a tax credit to help employers bear the rising cost of health insurance.

And how much will this premium-lowering plan raise everyone's taxes? (Where does he think the government's money comes from?) Kerry seems to feel pretty damned generous with other people's money; let him fund this bloody boondoggle out of his own pocket.

Seriously, though, government funding and tax breaks for businesses are not the answer.

Right now, if your employer buys health coverage for you, you get the benefits absolutely free of state and federal income and payroll taxes, without limit. But if you must pay for your own health insurance, you get no tax break at all. Every penny is paid with after-tax dollars, which means most people have to earn about $7,000 just to pay for a $4,000 insurance policy. If workers without job-based insurance were treated the same as workers who get coverage through their jobs, the effective cost of coverage would be cut nearly in half, allowing many millions of the currently uninsured to get health insurance.

But that's not all from the Kerrys' Better Living Through Big Government agenda. (Thanks to Galen, again.) A Department of Wellness? Good Lord. Every charlatan who couldn't get into a Mexican podiatry school will be trying to feed at that trough, claiming that we can achieve "wellness" if we put positive ions in our soup by wearing silly hats and yelling "Booga Booga".

I'm appointing myself Mistress of Wellness. Now grovel at my feet, worm, and I'll enlighten you. (Whoops, got a little carried away....) Anyway: Eat less. Move more. Don't smoke. Drink in moderation. Now where's my six-figure paycheck?

Disclaimer below

I don't claim to have the answers. But I think it would be a step in the right direction to remove the nanny state and employers from the equation (at least where coverage for the able-bodied is concerned); lower taxes and costs would give people more disposable income to buy catastrophic coverage and pay for out-of-pocket expenses. I can't get over the strangeness of leaving something as personal as your health in the hands of government or your employer.