So, I've been procrastinating doing my taxes now for some time. Usually, I can't get to the tax office fast enough. I start preparing before I even get my W2 in the mail. But this year, not so excited.
Why?
I had a business last year and unlike most, I did very well. I sold this business only 4 days before the new year because my children's health seemed to be declining while my business needs were increasing. I've been desperately trying to buy time to find as many deductions as I possibly can.
But, I also have been buying time trying to scrounge up enough medical deductions. Medical deductions are tricky. You have to have 7.5% of your income to even be able to deduct them. You can only deduct food you ate while inpatient. You can only deduct $100 per day for hotel expenses. You get a low mileage rate. You can deduct any expenses you paid to medical professionals. Sometimes I wonder is it even worth the time. I was pretty sure I probably didn't have enough this year as my husband had a pretty good year and with my income, we're probably wasting our time. However, I thought I'd start.
Here are our special needs statistics so far. Having a sick child should automatically give you some sort of a tax credit. Here are some of our stats, and I'm just getting started!
We have a $20 copay per doctor's appointment per child. We have 2 children, both are sick. Our pediatrician is 66 miles away.
We took 67 trips to the pediatrician.
We drove approximately 4422 miles to get to the pediatrician.
We spent $1864.83 in patient responsibility to the pediatrician alone.
This is with good insurance. This doesn't include our pharmacy bills, hospital bills, other specialists appointments, or visits for my husband or myself. It doesn't include our big trip of the year to Baltimore (a 9 hour drive for us) or the many trips we made to regional doctors (Atlanta and Greenville---both about 200 miles away). It doesn't include stuff we can't deduct, like the expensive foods that are milk/soy free for our baby and remember when gas was $4/gallon---the mileage rate won't touch the amount of money we spent in gas.
I had an old friend who wrote on Facebook "Just say no to nationalized healthcare". I had to ask to her why she felt this way.
Her comment back was that all you had to do was look at other countries and see that wait times would increase and care would decrease.
What I get that people who are healthy don't, is that some care is better than none for those that aren't insured. Longer wait times, well that would be because the people who are uninsured and aren't going to the doctor (like my successful self employed mother) would be getting care. And, for people like us who have worked very hard to earn a good income, might would be able to not go broke trying to pay for our sick children.
What is your solution to the health crisis just out of curiosity? I had much different opinions before I became the mother of two medically fragile children. Last year we paid over $16,000 in out of pocket medical expenses even with two insurances. Thank goodness my husband has a good job and we actually have insurance. Yes, we are hard working tax paying citizens. I paid taxes on that $16,000 I paid in medical expenses. Sure, I deducted that last year...but I can assure you I didn't get it back penny for penny---not even close!
I guess I feel like it already impacts care and increases wait times. Take a trip to the ER and you'll see all the people who can't afford to go to the doctor..so they go to the ER and sit and wait because they have to see them in the ER regardless of their ability to be pay and then the hospital writes off their bills...my hospital inflates charges (ie pacifiers being $50) because my insurance pays my bill and they are guaranteed that money and then my insurance price goes up and they pay less, which means I have less money to spend on our economy. Think of what I could have bought for $16K last year!! I don't know that there is a good solution, either...but I know that children and elderly are suffering--and the people who are trying to support them are going broke. A 6 figure income isn't even enough when you have a sick kid. Christopher Reeve's bills were so much that people had to have fundraisers for him and he was a millionaire.
I know we aren't going to agree on this..I was just curious what alternative you had in mind...bottom line is people who don't have insurance aren't losing care because they didn't have any to begin with and the wait times would increase because more people would be seen and saved--people like my mom who doesn't go to the doctor because she doesn't have insurance. Some people think, well that's not my problem. I say thank God for your health, your job, your insurance, and pray it doesn't change. Because it can in the blink of an eye, and then national healthcare, longer wait times, any care, and higher taxes...won't sound so bad...especially if you need J feeds (if you don't know what that is---it's the way my child eats---24 hours on a pump through a tube going into his intestines---he's 3!!!). There are so many worse things...and if the US is going to spend their money on something...I'd rather it be this than auto-bailouts. I could have bought a car last year with our medical bills. That would have helped the economy..I would have gladly paid taxes on that so people could have the health care they need.
Brandi,
I agree with you. I especially liked your comment about how things can change with the blink of an eye or in our case...with the birth of a baby. I had a sweet teaching job with full benefits, sick leave and summers off. But my little baby could not eat, breath or sleep like other babies and I was forced to quit my job. I know so many other families who have faced this dilemma. At a time when the medical bills were the highest, the family income dropped considerably. If I went back to work, I would have needed a nurse to care for my daughter. It would have taken all of my salary and more to pay a caretaker just to go back to work and maintain my healthcare benefits.
Those of us who have jobs, healthcare benefits and most of all our health are truely blessed. The under insured, uninsured and unemployed are suffering mightily. And you are right, ultimately, we all pay for their care one way or another.
Jan Gambino
The Reflux Mom
I've lived in several other countries, and most people there are happy with nationalized health care. Our country is the only one in which people can go bankrupt or spend much of their life savings because they or a loved one have devastating illnesses . The big pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies are heartless here. And so are many doctors and hospitals that just pat you on the back while they keep jacking up their fees and the cost of operations, lab tests, treatments and procedures. Sometims the prices are so outrageous that one wants to scream, but they just look at you as though you, not they, are the problem.
I'd be thrilled to have nationalized healthcare here in our very backwards country. I know some of you would say that if I don't like it here, to just leave. But that's not the point. Some of you need a little compassion. Maybe it will take a serious illness for some of you who can't be bothered to think about this. You should be angry as hell about what is being done to us as a nation. They serve only the very rich, just like so many others in this country.
Thank all of you for your comments. I have been thinking about this post a lot since I'm sick and haven't done much of anything else. It bothers me. But it also made me think of a trip I took last year to Ireland. A trip we took for free because my husband had done so well with his company (Placed #7 in the nation with Beneficial Finance Co). A trip we took only one week after our youngest had been in the hospital and had struggled with whether it was the right thing to do or not. See, it's a hard balance to not feel guilty for trying to nurse your marriage and your own life because you put so much of yourself in taking care of sick children. That's why a lot of marriages don't make it through having sick children.
Anyway, while on several tours in Ireland they told us American tourists how low our taxes really were even when we think they are high at times. They pay almost half of their salaries in taxes of some sort. But, they all seemed happy. They all still worked. Waitresses get paid a salary and no one tips waitresses! Everyone has medical care. It seems to work for them. They seem happy people. They also drink and smoke way more than we do, but yet they don't seem to have near as many health problem epidemics as we do, obesity for instance.
I just realized last night while talking to my husband, that we don't know what high taxes are and there is a huge misconception of what other countries health care is really like.
So, Karl, it's interesting to read your comment after this conversation.
I 100% agree that so many people who have these views that nationalized healthcare in any form is such a horrible thing must not be affected in any way by someone who is critically ill and needs constant nursing care.
I, like Jan, could teach. I will be paying for my teaching degree for the rest of my life it seems. But, the cost it would take me to pay for a constant nurse for my child who is 24 hours tube fed, would be far more than I would ever make.
That doesn't mean I'm not a hard worker or that my family isn't paying lots of taxes. In fact, a look at my day will be my next blog. What I do in a normal typical day. Then we'll see who thinks I'm not a hard worker...and one that is 100% under paid (because I'm not paid for the hard work I do on a daily basis in a monetary form).