..::: NEWS RELEASE
..::: OCTOBER 7, 2003
Problem: Health & Taxes May Be Worse Than Death & Taxes; Solution: Reform Tax Code, Expand Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs)
NEWPORT BEACH, CALIFORNIA—Amid rising medical costs, changing health
care benefits and renewed claims that the number of so-called uninsured
Americans is increasing, Americans would be much better off if they were
left alone to cover their own health care. That's what Richard Ralston,
executive director of a California-based organization recently wrote in
an op-ed.
Though it's hardly a typical argument—most health
care policy analysts widely accept the notion of government intervention
in medicine—Ralston's viewpoint is rooted in the facts and the law.
"The wealthiest government employees or corporate
executives who receive health care insurance as a part of their
compensation package receive this benefit on a tax-free basis," Ralston,
who runs Americans for Free Choice in Medicine (AFCM), explained in a
recent op-ed.
"Anyone who pays their own health insurance premiums
or medical bills must struggle to wring these payments from income that
is fully taxed. This practice is unfair and it inflates the cost of
health care for everyone," Ralston wrote. His op-eds have been published
in the Orange County (Calif.) Register and the Washington Times.
The proper solution, he argued, is an idea whose time
has come—and is unfortunately, set to expire: expand unrestricted
tax-free medical savings accounts (MSAs).
"MSAs cover most routine medical expenses and make
health care affordable. Were MSAs made available to every American, the
tax burden of supporting huge government health care expenditures would
be alleviated," Ralston concluded. He noted: "Very restricted MSA's
exist today, but the legislation creating them will expire at the end of
2003."
Americans for Free Choice in Medicine, (AFCM),
founded in 1993, publishes a consumer's guide and tutorial to MSAs on
its Web site and it is the nation's only educational organization based
on individual rights, personal responsibility and free market ideas in
medicine.
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Copyright © 2003 Americans for Free Choice in Medicine. All rights reserved.
For reprint permission, contact AFCM.
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