2000 Ron Paul 62:1
Mr. Speaker, today I
attempted to help working Americans provide for their childrens health
care needs by introducing the Family Health Tax Cut Act. The Family
Health Tax Cut Act provides parents with a tax credit of up to $500 for
health care expenses of dependent children. Parents caring for a child
with a disability, terminal disease, cancer, or any other health
condition requiring specialized care would receive a tax credit of up
to $3,000 to help cover their childs health care expenses. The tax
credit would be available to all citizens regardless of whether or not
they itemize their deductions.
2000 Ron Paul 62:2
The tax credits
provided in
this bill will be especially helpful to those Americans whose employers
cannot afford to provide their employees health insurance. These
workers must struggle to meet the medical bills of themselves and their
families. This burden is especially heavy on parents whose children
have a medical condition, such as cancer or a physical disability,
which requires long-term or specialized health care.
2000 Ron Paul 62:3
As an OB-GYN who
has had the
privilege of delivering more than four thousand babies, I know how
important it is that parents have the resources to provide adequate
health care for their children. The inability of many working Americans
to provide health care for their children is rooted in one of the great
inequities of the tax code: Congress failure to allow individuals the
same ability to deduct health care costs that it grants to businesses.
As a direct result of Congress refusal to provide individuals with
health care related tax credits, parents whose employers do not provide
health insurance have to struggle to provide health care for their
children. Many of these parents work in low-income jobs; oftentimes
their only recourse to health care is the local emergency room.
2000 Ron Paul 62:4
Sometimes parents
are forced
to delay seeking care for their children until minor health concerns
that could have been easily treated become serious problems requiring
expensive treatment! If these parents had access to the type of tax
credits provided in the Family Health Tax Cut Act they would be better
able to provide care for their children and our nations already
overcrowded emergency room facilities would be relieved of the burden
of having to provide routine care for people who otherwise cannot
afford any other alternative.
2000 Ron Paul 62:5
According to
research on the
effects of this bill done by my staff and legislative counsel, the
benefit of these tax credits would begin to be felt by joint filers
with incomes slightly above 18,000 dollars a year or single income
filers with incomes slightly above 15,000 dollars per year. Clearly
this bill will be of the most benefit to low-income Americans balancing
the demands of taxation with the needs of their children.
2000 Ron Paul 62:6
Under the Family
Health Tax
Cut Act, a struggle single mother with an asthmatic child would at last
be able to provide for her childs needs; while a working-class family
will not have to worry about how they will pay the bills if one of
their children requires lengthy hospitalization or some other form of
specialized care.
2000 Ron Paul 62:7
Mr. Speaker, this
Congress
has a moral responsibility to provide low-income parents struggling to
care for a sick child tax relief in order to help them better meet
their childs medical expenses. I would ask any of my colleagues who
would say that we cannot enact the Family Tax Cut Act because it would
cause the government to lose too much revenue, who is more deserving of
this money, Congress or the working-class parents of a sick child?
2000 Ron Paul 62:8
The Family Health
Tax Cut Act
takes a major step toward helping working Americans meet their health
care needs by providing them with generous health care related tax cuts
and tax credits. I urge my colleagues to support the pro-family,
pro-health care tax cuts contained in the Family Health Tax Cut Act.
This chapter appeared in Ron Pauls Congressional website at http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2000/cr063000.htm