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OCT. 17, 2008:NWLP
10/14/08
9:55 AM
Page 3
McCain’s health care plan would drop 20 million people
By MIKE HALL
When John McCain’s health care
plan comes under scrutiny, his claims
that it would solve the nation’s health
care crisis are easily stripped away.
Newsweek economics correspon-
dent Jane Bryant Quinn writes that if
McCain’s health care plan was put into
effect, it would drop 20 million people
from employer coverage and throw
them into the shark tank of the private
insurance world, and “will raise your
costs without changing the game.”
Writing in The Nation, Rose Ann
DeMoro, executive director of the Cal-
ifornia Nurses Association/National
Nurses Organizing Committee, warns
McCain’s plan would turn the health
care industry over to the same deregu-
lated, “free market” philosophy that
sank Wall Street.
The Wall Street Journal reports Mc-
Cain’s health care plan would cut
Medicare and Medicaid by $1.3 trillion.
In Newsweek, Quinn writes: “Mc-
Cain’s idea is pretty simple. Tax the
value of employer-paid health insur-
ance as part of your regular income
(62 percent of the non-elderly are in
these plans). In return, he’d give every-
one a refundable tax credit.”
McCain’s health care plan, as Sen.
Barack Obama pointed out: “… is a
shell game. Sen. McCain gives you a
tax credit with one hand, but raises
your taxes with the other.”
Those tax credits McCain says will
let you buy health insurance on the pri-
vate market fall far short of the cost to
replace most workers’ employer-pro-
vided coverage, especially older work-
ers, who could face annual premium
costs of $12,000 or more, writes
Quinn. She notes that estimates from
the non-partisan Tax Policy Center
predict 20 million will lose their em-
ployer coverage and be forced into the
private market.
What do you get in the private mar-
ket?
“It’s a shock to move from group
plans into the harsh world of individ-
ual insurance,” Quinn writes. “You get
‘choices.’ But the policies cost more
and cover less than company plans do
— especially for women, older people
and those whose health is less than
perfect.
“That is, if you can find coverage at
all. In 2006, the Commonwealth Fund
studied working-age adults hunting for
individual policies. One-fifth were
charged more or rejected for health
reasons.
More than
half found it
hard or im-
possible to
secure a pol-
icy they
could af-
ford.”
For those
who don’t
have health
insurance to-
day, they won’t under the McCain
plan. Quinn writes the tax credit might
move about 1 million of the 46 million
uninsured off the rolls, compared to 34
million under Obama’s proposals.
“If you’re uninsured, the tax credit
helps you purchase coverage. The only
hitch — a big one — is that you have
to be able to afford the premiums up
front. The tax credit comes later. The
government will send it to the insur-
ance company, which will apply it to
your account.”
Quinn says conservatives love the
“magic of the marketplace,” but De-
Moro provides some chilling exam-
ples of that magical marketplace Mc-
Cain worships.
“[The] private insurance system
that welcomes anyone who is sick or
has a prior medical condition as if they
were carrying anthrax.
“... People like Karen George of
Woodbridge, Va., whose insurer re-
cently de-
nied her
coverage for
surgery to
treat a dis-
connected
jawbone and
insufficient
airway that
her physi-
cian said
was life-
threatening.
Or Barbara Calder of Colorado
Springs, who was unable to buy insur-
ance to cover her disabling genetic dis-
ease and is moving to her native Bel-
gium to get health care. Or Samuel
McAdam of Thornton, Pa., whose in-
surer denied the oral medication he
needed for his stage-four melanoma.”
She points out the contradiction
that while McCain and other free mar-
keters who are “cheerleading” the
$700 billion taxpayer-paid Wall Street
bailout, they attack any move to enact
meaningful health care for all legisla-
tion as an assault on the marketplace.
“McCain’s idea is pretty
simple. Tax the value of
employer-paid health
insurance as part of your
regular income ...”
DeMoro also warns that McCain’s
call to reduce regulations on the health
care industry — echoing his decade’s
long crusade to deregulate the finan-
cial and banking industries — would
“strip away public protections that
consumers have won in many states,
such as requirements that insurers
cover such ‘frills’ as cancer screening,
diabetic supplies and minimum mater-
nity stays.
“...Reduced regulations and over-
sight failed spectacularly on Wall
Street. They’ll make the health care
crisis worse, as well.”
Recently, the Wall Street Journal re-
ported the McCain campaign — after
months of dodging questions about
where McCain gets the money for his
health tax credits—admitted it was
coming from some $1.3 trillion in cuts
to Medicare and Medicaid — the cor-
nerstone health care programs for the
nation’s seniors, disabled and low-in-
come families.
“The Republican presidential nomi-
nee has said little about the proposed
cuts. ... The McCain campaign hasn’t
given a specific figure for the cuts, but
didn’t dispute that analysts’ estimate.”
In short: McCain’s health care plan
will raise taxes, reduce benefits, raise
costs, bring a “free-market-Wall-
Street” free-for-all to the health care
industry and cut $1.3 trillion in senior
and low-income health care.
(Editor’s Note: Mike Hall writes for
the AFL-CIONowBlog News.)
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