McCain's Radical Health-Care Plan In a Nutshell

excerpts from Obama's speech today in Newport News, Va. :


Senator McCain has been eager to share some details of his plan – but not all.

He tells you that he’ll give you a tax credit of $2,500 per person — $5,000 per family — to help you pay for your insurance and health care costs. But like those ads for prescription drugs, you have to read the fine print to learn the rest of the story.

You see, Senator McCain would pay for his plan, in part, by taxing your health care benefits for the first time in history. And this tax would come out of your paycheck. But the new tax credit he’s proposing? That wouldn’t go to you. It would go directly to your insurance company — not your bank account. So when you read the fine print, it’s clear that John McCain is pulling an old Washington bait and switch. It’s a shell game. He gives you a tax credit with one hand — but raises your taxes with the other.

* * * *

And here’s something else Senator McCain won’t tell you. When he taxes people’s benefits, many younger, healthier workers will decide that it’s a better deal to opt out of the insurance they get at work — and instead, go out into the individual market, where they can buy a cheaper plan. Many employers will be left with an older, sicker pool of workers who they can’t afford to cover. As a result, many employers will drop their health care plans altogether. And study after study has shown, that under the McCain plan, at least 20 million Americans will lose the insurance they rely on from their workplace.

It’s the same approach George W. Bush floated a few years ago. It was dead on arrival in Congress. But if Senator McCain were to succeed where George Bush failed, it very well could be the beginning of the end of our employer-based health care system. In fact, some experts have said that that’s exactly the point of John McCain’s plan — to drive you out of the insurance you have through your employer — and out into the marketplace, where your family will be given that $5,000 tax credit and told to buy insurance on your own.

A $5,000 tax credit. That sounds pretty good. But what Senator McCain doesn’t tell you is that the average cost of a family health care plan these days is more than twice that much — $12,680. So where would that leave you?

* * * *

Finally, what John McCain doesn’t tell you is that his plan calls for massive deregulation of the insurance industry that would leave families without the basic protections you rely on. You may have heard about how, in the current issue of a magazine, Senator McCain wrote that we need to open up health care to — and I quote — “more vigorous nationwide competition as we have done over the last decade in banking.” That’s right, he wants to deregulate the insurance industry just like he fought to deregulate the banking industry. And we’ve all seen how well that worked out.

* * * *

So here’s John McCain’s radical plan in a nutshell: he taxes health care benefits for the first time in history; millions lose the health care they have; millions pay more for the health care they get; drug and insurance companies continue to profit; and middle class families watch the system they rely on begin to unravel before their eyes. Well, I don’t think that’s right. I don’t think we should settle for health care that works better for drug and insurance companies than it does for hard working Americans. I don’t think that’s the change we need. We can do better than that.



Sen. Barack Obama speaks during a rally at Abington High School in Abington, Pennsylvania on Friday.


transcript of full speech: http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1008/Obama_attacks_radical_McCain_health_plan.html?showall

or is a dollar of tax credit mean that you don't get taxed on a dollar of income therefore saving a person about 30 cents.
Example if I make $50,000 and my taxes are say $15,000, will I pay $10,000 in tax OR will I be taxed on $45,000 and pay $13,500?
Of course either way it is a scam.
Also, isn't the $5,000 for a family plan? If you had a single plan don't you get quite a bit less, like @$2,000?

from Annenberg: http://www.factcheck.org/mccains_5000_promise.html


In the ad, he says the problem with health care is not the quality, but the cost. As a remedy, he promises "every American family a $5,000 refundable tax credit" so families can purchase their own insurance policies. (Individuals would receive $2,500.) The federal government would send the money directly to insurance providers.

Those with employer-sponsored coverage, however, also might want to know that under McCain's plan, they will pay taxes on the value of health care benefits they receive from their employers. It's not that families will receive a windfall of $5,000, but that the credit will more or less offset the increased taxes they'll pay.

Who saves money and who loses under the plan, depends on the tax bracket an individual or family is in and what their health coverage costs. Kenneth E. Thorpe, a former Clinton administration health expert who now is a professor at Emory University, says there would be "a lot of redistribution – a lot of winners and losers" under a McCain plan. Lower-income individuals could do better if they have health care through their employer. They'd pay a lower tax rate on those benefits than higher income workers. "Some people will pay more and some will pay less," Thorpe says.

Those who would benefit most from McCain's tax credit are those who already buy their own private plans and don't receive tax benefits. Those who are uninsured may find the tax credit provides enough financial incentive to sign up for health care policies. The average annual premium costs for a family with employer-sponsored insurance (including both the employee's and employer's contribution) was $12,106 in 2007, and it was $4,479 for a single person, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Annual premiums for nongroup coverage (i.e., individually purchased plans) vary widely, currently ranging from $1,163 to $5,090 for singles, and $2,325 to $9,201 for family coverage. McCain says he will work with states to set up pools to cover those who have been denied insurance. One idea he suggests is to create nonprofit entities that would contract with insurers to cover high-risk people.

Some years in the future, the tax credit may not be substantial enough to make up for the increase in taxes. "Over time, an increasing number of workers will end up paying more in higher taxes ... than they will receive in federal assistance through the tax credits," Thorpe told us. "This occurs because the average premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance increase much faster than the health tax credits." (The McCain campaign says the credit will be indexed to the Consumer Price Index.)


read much more on McCain's plan here: http://www.factcheck.org/mccains_5000_promise.html

So go ahead and vote for him, lurking freeptards, if you want to pay higher taxes by having your medical bennies taxed.

of emergency room care. Health care as we do it is for the healthy not the sick. When you get sick and spend down all your assets, you have nothing left but some broken down, inadequate government programs.