Jack & Jill Politics

This is why I love the ‘net. Folks gathering the information so that we can help spread the word.

This is from The Jed Report

Sun Jul 6, 4:33 PM Pacific

McCain’s radical plan to gut employer-based health coverage

Employer-provided health insurance is about as American as apple pie, but if John McCain had his way, we’d scrap it all together.

It would be one thing if he were proposing a single payer system to take its place, but that’s the last thing in the world that John McCain wants. In his ideal world, when it comes to health care, each American would be on his or her own.

You see, when McCain looks at the health care system, he thinks that it is a huge problem that 177 million Americans receive insurance through their job (47 million have no insurance and the rest get it individually or through government programs).

Talk about being out of touch.

McCain proposes to solve the “problem” of employer-based coverage by offering a recycled version of a Bush’s health care plan: individual tax credits of $2,500 per individual or $5,000 per family (indexed for inflation) and elimination of the tax subsidies that support employer-based health insurance.

What this means is that under McCain’s plan, employers could choose to continue offering employer-based health plans, but employees would be responsible for paying tax on the full value of those plans.

Not only would McCain’s plan lead to a huge tax increase for those who maintain employer-based plans, but it would also dramatically widen the gap between health care haves and have nots without doing a thing to lower costs or improve the quality of coverage.

A tax increase

Assume for a moment that every employer who currently offers health care coverage continues to do so, and that every employee who receives it also continues to do so. Although most families wouldn’t see a difference initially, McCain’s plan would quickly become a huge tax increase.

Here’s why: health care costs are rising at 7% per year. McCain’s tax credit increases at the rate of inflation overall, which is far lower than the rate of inflation in the health care sector.

The problem is that under current law, the tax benefits for employer-based health insurance increase at the same rate as health care costs. Since they would increase far more slowly under McCain’s plan, taxes would actually go up now that employees have to pay taxes on the full value of their health benefits.

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Resources

The Kaiser Health Foundation has a side-by-side comparison of the Obama and McCain health care plans.

The Center for American Progress assesses the tax and health market implications of what it calls “McCain’s Radical Prescription for Health-Care.”

McClatchy:“McCain, Obama offer vastly different health care plans.”

Complete article at link above. But, also click on the ‘Resources’ links to more information.

So, just in case someone tries to tell you that there’s NO difference between electing Obama and McCain, you can click on the links, educate yourself, and explain how health care would be vastly different under the candidates.