President McCain's promise: 20 million Americans will lose their employer-provided health insurance coverage

[*julez* 124]

He lost me at Joe Six Pack.

Who represents jelly bellied Americans like me?

I'm afraid, no one

I'll represent you - just tell me who you'd like "disappeared" and I'll call my TJ hommies.

whoa. Sister Len is on badazz mutha

[Chica Yeyé 41]

He lost me at Joe Six Pack.

Who represents jelly bellied Americans like me?

I'm afraid, no one

I'll represent you - just tell me who you'd like "disappeared" and I'll call my TJ hommies.

whoa. Sister Len is on badazz mutha

You know it

[AlHayatZween 2]

I'm really looking forward to losing my coverage, thanks.

No worries, MaWilson, if you lose your insurance (and i hope you dont!), i'll hook you up with all the sliding-scale city services...

i have your back in this time of crisis...

Edited October 6, 2008 by AlHayatZween

[mawilson 2,133]

I'm really looking forward to losing my coverage, thanks.

No worries, MaWilson, if you lose your insurance (and i hope you dont!), i'll hook you up with all the sliding-scale city services...

i have your back in this time of crisis...

Hopefully it won't come to that. After all, I'll have McCain's $5,000 tax credit! That ought to buy me some Tylenol if I get sick.

[HAL 9000 96]

He lost me at Joe Six Pack.

Who represents jelly bellied Americans like me?

I'm afraid, no one

I'll represent you - just tell me who you'd like "disappeared" and I'll call my TJ hommies.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

After all, I'll have McCain's $5,000 tax credit! That ought to buy me some Tylenol if I get sick.

Or some Tussin.

[Amby 490]

I'm really looking forward to losing my coverage, thanks.

No worries, MaWilson, if you lose your insurance (and i hope you dont!), i'll hook you up with all the sliding-scale city services...

i have your back in this time of crisis...

Hopefully it won't come to that. After all, I'll have McCain's $5,000 tax credit! That ought to buy me some Tylenol if I get sick.

*dumps out purse*

you know there's a reason this thing is so damn big...what do you need?

[kaydee457 13]

Yep, this is certainly a "deal breaker" for me......Personally, I don't think he'd ever get this signed into law as the backlash would be formidable, particularly from unions.......

Let's face it, the majority of Presidents never get their proposals signed into law anyway (I hope!)........

Well with the bailout its not as though wholesale healthcare reform is really going to be on the agenda in the next 4 years, regardless of the outcome of the election.

Says who? Obama has it at the top of his liberal agenda....That's what he's about! That's what his suprficial following expects of him. They'll settle for no less lest he be kicked out in 2012! And he will be if not implemented.

[Nikita2Charles 33]

Deregulate the insurance companies just like they did with the financial banking industry

Way to go!!!! B) B)

[Reba 2]

Hopefully it won't come to that. After all, I'll have McCain's $5,000 tax credit! That ought to buy me some Tylenol if I get sick.

Except that $5000 "tax credit" is just going directly to the insurance company "of your choice". It doesn't come to you, it goes to the insurance company.

I fail to see how that can be a "tax credit"

Mr. McSame's website sez:

Families will be able to choose the insurance provider that suits them best and the money would be sent directly to the insurance provider.

And what if $5000 doesn't cover my insurance premiums? What then eh?

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

And what if $5000 doesn't cover my insurance premiums? What then eh?

[yogib37 3]

Most Americans under 65 currently get health insurance through their employers. That’s largely because the tax code favors such insurance: your employer’s contribution to insurance premiums isn’t considered taxable income, as long as the employer’s health plan follows certain rules. In particular, the same plan has to be available to all employees, regardless of the size of their paycheck or the state of their health.

This system does a fairly effective job of protecting those it reaches, but it leaves many Americans out in the cold. Workers whose employers don’t offer coverage are forced to seek individual health insurance, often in vain. For one thing, insurance companies offering “nongroup” coverage generally refuse to cover anyone with a pre-existing medical condition. And individual insurance is very expensive, because insurers spend large sums weeding out “high-risk” applicants — that is, anyone who seems likely to actually need the insurance.

So what should be done? Barack Obama offers incremental reform: regulation of insurers to prevent discrimination against the less healthy, subsidies to help lower-income families buy insurance, and public insurance plans that compete with the private sector. His plan falls short of universal coverage, but it would sharply reduce the number of uninsured.

Mr. McCain, on the other hand, wants to blow up the current system, by eliminating the tax break for employer-provided insurance. And he doesn’t offer a workable alternative.

Without the tax break, many employers would drop their current health plans. Several recent nonpartisan studies estimate that under the McCain plan around 20 million Americans currently covered by their employers would lose their health insurance.

As compensation, the McCain plan would give people a tax credit — $2,500 for an individual, $5,000 for a family — that could be used to buy health insurance in the individual market. At the same time, Mr. McCain would deregulate insurance, leaving insurance companies free to deny coverage to those with health problems — and his proposal for a “high-risk pool” for hard cases would provide little help.

So what would happen?

The good news, such as it is, is that more people would buy individual insurance. Indeed, the total number of uninsured Americans might decline marginally under the McCain plan — although many more Americans would be without insurance than under the Obama plan.

But the people gaining insurance would be those who need it least: relatively healthy Americans with high incomes. Why? Because insurance companies want to cover only healthy people, and even among the healthy only those able to pay a lot in addition to their tax credit would be able to afford coverage (remember, it’s a $5,000 credit, but the average family policy actually costs more than $12,000).

Meanwhile, the people losing insurance would be those who need it most: lower-income workers who wouldn’t be able to afford individual insurance even with the tax credit, and Americans with health problems whom insurance companies won’t cover.

And in the process of comforting the comfortable while afflicting the afflicted, the McCain plan would also lead to a huge, expensive increase in bureaucracy: insurers selling individual health plans spend 29 percent of the premiums they receive on administration, largely because they employ so many people to screen applicants. This compares with costs of 12 percent for group plans and just 3 percent for Medicare.

In short, the McCain plan makes no sense at all, unless you have faith that the magic of the marketplace can solve all problems. And Mr. McCain does: a much-quoted article published under his name declares that “Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.”

I agree: the McCain plan would do for health care what deregulation has done for banking. And I’m terrified.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/06/opinion/06krugman.html

:thumbs:

Yeah, that where I fall in. I am glad I have group insurance and it is decent, I would hate to lose to MCSHAME Health plan.

I am diabetic, and I risked my life, before not having insurance cause

1) I could not get any coverage,

2) COBRA is too much.

I can't see out of my left eye now, (partly my fault) but I could not go to a doctor to treat my problem without insurance.

So far he did was laser on it and to surgerys,

Laser was like $4600

each eye surgery was like $7500 each.

Just thank god I had insurance for that ( Yes, ComCast at that time)

SO we must make sure He does not get elected so we can keep our group insurance.

[panamania79 2]

is this the Joe Six-Pack they are referring to??

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

When Obamas promises dont come true call Steve or AJ they will send you a Then everything will be okay!

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

When Obamas promises dont come true call Steve or AJ they will send you a Then everything will be okay!

Why do you think people who have been through umpteen elections before are expecting not to be disappointed in some respects?

Do you think its only occurred to you - that there are often large differences between what politician's promise and what they deliver?