On his website, Republican presidential candidate John McCain has laid out a health care plan that is supposed to give “access to health care for every American.” Note that it didn’t say that we would be able to afford the healthcare, only that we would have access to it. Earlier, I called the McCain plan a dumb idea. Nothing so far has changed my mind.
According to Bob Herbert, a study was released last Tuesday projecting that under McCain’s plan, “20 million Americans who have employment-based health insurance would lose it.”
According to the study: “The McCain plan will force millions of Americans into the weakest segment of the private insurance system — the nongroup market — where cost-sharing is high, covered services are limited and people will lose access to benefits they have now.”
The net effect of the plan, the study said, “almost certainly will be to increase family costs for medical care.”
The entire study can be found here.
This reminded me of a post I saw earlier on another blog about the effect of John McCain’s health plan on Virginians. If you recall, McCain’s plan will tax the employee on the employer-paid portion of the health insurance benefit. This additional tax is supposed to be offset by a credit, but it seems there is a problem with this:
The tax credit only grows with inflation (2%/year). But the cost of healthcare is growing much faster than that – 7%. [Source] This amounts to a bait-and-switch: The first year or so, everything will seem fine. Your tax credit will make up for the extra taxes you pay on your employer contribution. But gradually, the growth of your healthcare costs will outpace the growth of the tax credit. And by 2013, the Center for American Progress estimates, the average American family could be paying $1,100 more in taxes on healthcare than they do now.
But that’s not all. Even as the country is facing recession and Virginia, like many other states, is facing budget shortfalls, we have the additional issue of federal funding of SCHIP, the health insurance program for poor children, which in Virginia covers some 90,900 kids. John McCain voted against SCHIP funding, which will have dire consequences for Virginia:
As this article in the Newport, VA Daily Press spells out quite fully, if nothing changes soon, Bush’s veto is going to force Virginia and states like it to uninsure thousands of children:
…[M]ore than 90,900 Virginia children currently enrolled in the program could be in jeopardy come March. That’s when current federal funding for the program runs out…”We know that Virginia is OK through that time, but after that time, we are not OK,” said Amy Paulson, director of the Consortium for Infant and Child Health, a community partnership founded by the Eastern Virginia Medical School to promote health and prevent disease in Hampton Roads children.
“If it’s not re-funded, we are not OK.”
Don’t we already have enough people in this country who do not have health insurance? Do we really want to add more, especially children, to the uninsured ranks?
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
About SCHIP — if Virginia doesn’t have the money to fund it, why do you think the United States does? The federal and state governments get their money from the same place — the people. Considering our $9,600,000,000,000 national debt, I would say the United States does not have the money.
It’s funny how we can find the money to wage a war over non-existent weapons of mass destruction, and we can find the money to spend on Iraq’s reconstruction when they have plenty of money in surplus from oil sales, and we can find the money to pay out severance packages for failed CEOs when we bail out their failed financial institutions, but we can’t find the money to help a 10 year old with diabetes pay for her insulin.
If you want the Aunt Virginia to pay for it, fine — enact an insurance program like Romney did in Massachusetts. But why send our money to the federal government just to it sent back (after administrative expenses), especially when such a program is unconstitutional in the first place?
On the more immediate topic of bailouts, there should be none, and the CEO should probably be tried and imprisoned for fraud. Also, the Democrats in Congress who blocked Bush’s efforts to impose stricter accounting rules and oversight on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should resign in shame. (Nevermind the government officials who threatened the lending institutions if they did not extend loans to people who were not qualified.)
If I had time to go through a laundry list of reasons why it’s assinine to think that its’ the Democrat’s fault for holding out on regulatory proposals from the Bush administration, I would. Seeing as I don’t, I might as well clarify Republican “leadership” on the issue of financial regulation with the opening two lines from a piece I read in the Wall Street Journal today:
Right. Here is McCain talking about the problems with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2006.
Where was Obama? Getting campaign contributions from Fannie Mae to the tune of $126k.
Anon E. Mouse, At least one of McCain’s key advisors is at the top of the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac food chain. If I was listening to Keith Olberman (backround noise) better, I’d be able to provide the name.
Regarding health care plans, it is ironic that John McCain as been the beneficiary of free medical coverage provided by the American tax payer ever since he was a gleam in his father’s eye. John was a Navy Brat to an Admiral and was covered under military medical coverage from conception. After that he was covered at Annapolis, to which he got in by virtue of his admiral father and grandfather. Then as an employee in the Navy. After that he got free tax payer provide medical coverage as a retireee. Then as a Senator.
McCain is clueless about what real civilian Americans deal with regarding medical care. He was born with a blue, yellow, and silver spoon in his mouth.
The McCain guy that is tied up with Fannie Mae/Freddie Mack is Rick Davis. According to wikipedia: “Richard H. Davis (b. 1959) is the chief executive officer of the John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. An American lobbyist, he is currently on leave from Davis, Manafort & Freedman, a political consulting firm in Alexandria, Virginia.[1]” He reportedly was receiving about $30,000 per month from Fannie Mae and/or Freddie Mac as a lobbyist!
And this is where I need to point out that Anon E. Mouse is an utter waste of time. Instead of talking about McCain’s (lack of a real) health care plan, we’re suckered into debating the color of the sky with a blind man.
~
McCain’s plan shifts the burden of health care from the employer to the individual. Unfortunately, the individual, as a rule, isn’t in as nearly a good a position as the employer to select and negotiate a decent health care plan at an affordable rate under this scenario. In other words, McCain’s plan is a giant bucket of fail.
Flash — This goes to my comments in another thread some time ago that real campaign finance reform should ban contributions from all sources except individual citizens. Furthermore, we would have far fewer lobbyists if Congress held to those things which are constitutional. Can you find me any clause in the Constitution that might permit the creation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the first place? That is the root of the problem.
As for the lobbyist, I find it surprising that he is not on the list of Fannie Mae lobbyists for McCain. Furthermore, there is nothing wrong with being a lobbyist. It is a job. You, MB, are a lawyer, are you not? Do not lawyers often defend people they know to be guilty? Do they not, in a sense, lobby the juries to acquit their clients?
“McCain’s plan shifts the burden of health care from the employer to the individual.”
Follow the money. Where will the employer get the money? There are three possibilities: employees’ pay, increased prices, and profits. Which do you think the employers will choose? If it were to come out of profits, investors would move their money someplace that will yield a higher return. So employees’ pay is an easy one, so is raising prices — which will again be paid by the employees.
So, you want to have the government pay for it? Fine. As I said, we can do that now at the state level. Why wait for the federal government to come up with a one-size-fits-none plan that will waste money in another level of bureaucracy? And then, get ready for rationing and long waits.
It would be more fun to discuss things with you if you hadn’t lost all credibility on your Democrats=socialists, regulation=bad tirades last Wednesday, when as a consequence of the Republican’s anti-regulatory practices they were forced to advocate socializing our financial institutions. The very administration that opened its second term with an attempt to privatize social security’s finances is ending its second term by socializing the market’s private financial institutions. I think it’s pretty apparent to everyone paying attention that you don’t know what the hell is going on.
This used to be fun, but today it feels like a waste of everyone’s time.
Yes, democrats are socialists. The root of the problem is, wouldn’t you know it, government corporations. Fannie Mae was created in 1938 by a Democratic Congress. Freddie Mac was created in 1970 by a Democratic Congress. Part of the point of making Fannie Mae a private company in 1968 was to get its losses off the federal books, which allowed the budget to be in balance in 1969.
Follow that up with Janet Reno suing banks left and right for not making enough sup-prime mortgages (i.e., mortgages to those who are not likely to be able to repay), and you’re setting up a disaster. In fact, way back in 2003, Bush proposed stricter regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Since these agencies serve the Democrats’ constituents (i.e., the poor, who cannot afford a house under normal terms), the congressional Democrats shot it down.
So we are stuck with the mess that the Democrats created. They should all be allowed to fail. The companies should be allowed to go bankrupt, the CEOs of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be in prison for fraud and the companies disbanded, and those who default on their mortgages should be evicted. Painful in the short term, but beneficial in the long term.
Now, the screwy thing is, the same government that has so buggered this up, is running Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security into bankruptcy,, you want this government in charge of your health care, too?
Yes, McCain has been a beneficiary of the Navy medical system. So have I. When I was a child, my mother would pay private doctors out of her own pocket because the Navy system was so appalling. (Similarly, many Canadian comes here for medical care they pay for, rather than the “free” care they get at home.) The Secretary of the Army resigned over the debacle at Walter Reed, and you want to inflict this on everyone?