This is a serious subject that requires a bit of serious levity…..
I would much prefer guest-hosting Mike Rowe’s Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel than engage in the business of politics. In fact, the folks at his show are always looking for newest, nastiest dirtiest of the dirty jobs for Mike and the crew to come out and film, I submit Presidential Politics as the dirtiest for 2008.
Where I come from; when growing up the kids with swimming pools suddenly became quite popular in the summers. In fact, they had lots of best friends, or “pool pals” as they were called. The folks who would say and do anything to “be their best friend” in order to cool their sweaty bodies in that refreshing body of water on the hot summer days. But once the weather began to cool so did the pals, and the “pool pals” would vanish, faithful only until their own agenda was satisfied.
From what I’ve seen, I’ve got to liken Mr. Obama to the “Pool Pals” of yore. And his stance on McCain’s health care policy seems to be yet another example of that. But first a little video….
Doug Holz-Eakin, Sr. Policy Advisor to John McCain, hosted a teleconference on Saturday to address some pretty serious errors in Barack Obama’s characterizations, portrayals, descriptions, attack ads and other propaganda regarding John McCain’s health initiative.
I probably won’t do it justice, but will give it a crack here in terms of a summary. At a high level, Mr. Obama is trying to scare the crap out of American’s in his charges against the McCain policy. Mr. Holz-Eakin did not say this exactly but it’s my bubba interpretation of what I have been hearing. Of course that seems to be the way in politics, and neither Messrs. Obama nor McCain have a monopoly on fear tactics.
If you have watched the debates, seen Obama on the stump or seen any of his ads, you may have heard him/them say that the McCain health care plan would tax employers and be a disincentive for them to offer health insurance. This is wrong. Employers would still get the same deductions as they have today.
Health care, would be taxable at the employee level. However, for all but those in the highest tax brackets with the most expensive healthcare plans, the proposed tax credit, would more than offset any tax liability against wages with the balance of the credit put into the individual’s health savings account (HSA). So, for example, if you were an individual with a $12,000 employer sponsored plan for your family (which, by the way would often represent a damned good plan; good as in good enough for Congress good) and you were in the 10% tax bracket, your tax liability on the $12,000 would be $1,200.
Kind of sucks on the surface, but assuming you get the family tax credit McCain proposes; you would receive a credit of $5,000 minus your $1,200 tax liability. $5,000-$1,200=$3,800 which you could put into a health savings account. For the mathematically impaired, you just ended up with $3,800 more in your pocket than you had to start with. And if you were someone like me who is self insured, meaning I pay 100% of my family’s health insurance, you would receive the $5,000 tax credit which you could use to pay for your health insurance. In my case, that represents more than my family has spent so far this year on health care including premiums, meds, dr. visits, lab tests, and so forth.
Obama has said, Americans would never see the tax credit which instead would go straight to the insurance companies. Caca (my words, not Holz-Eakin’s)! Mr. Holz-Eakin states emphatically that this is just plain wrong. We would select and pay for our own insurance and manage the dollars directed to those companies. We are not total morons and McCain wants to give us credit that we can make these decisions on our own. I too think the average Joe can handle these decisions as well.
But what about the most vulnerable? The folks who today can’t even get insurance coverage. According to Mr. Obama, those folks are screwed (again, color added for effect—and probably poor effect at that). People who are the most risky from an insurability standpoint will be afforded a Guaranteed Access Plan which would cap costs for the most vulnerable at 150% of a comparable policy for someone at lower risk in every state. Sure it stinks when you have to pay more $ for something than your neighbor, but if you have serious health issues the costs to take care of you are probably far more than 50% more than your neighbor. This seems more than fair to me.
What about this whole “deregulation of healthcare” pitch Obama is making? He is trying to compare it to the whole banking mess that we are dealing with right now and scare us into thinking competition will lead to lax standards, perpetrate greed and excess and we’ll all end up broke and dead from lack of health care. Once again, I’ve added my own interpretation here, but he is trying to scare us.
Holtz-Eakin compares the “de-regulation” to that of the de-regulation that allows us to use bank ATMs across state lines or get off of an airplane in any state in the country. He points out that State insurance commissioners in all 50 states will continue to regulate insurance as they have always done to protect consumers. The difference being that we will not be forced to pay for coverage mandated by our state if we don’t need it and another state does not mandate it (hint – state mandates drive up costs).
McCain proposes as tax credit of $2,500 for an individual or $5,000 for a family to help the pay for their health insurance. I have a high deductible health plan and my premium for my family was less than $2,200 in 2008. I self-insure which means with McCain’s plan I would have been able to pay 100% of my premium and put $2,800 into my HSA account. Fortunately, we’ve been healthy this year and under this plan, I expect, come year end, under McCain’s plan we would have still had close to $500 in the health savings account, which would carry over into 2009.
Now, there is something like 47 million American’s who do not have insurance. With some strong education and the tax credit and protection McCain proposes, I would argue that most of those individuals, if they wanted it, could get the coverage they needed for themselves and their families. Yes, under the McCain plan, we are not going to have our insurance and health care decisions spoon fed to us, but we will be able to decide what we want to eat.
p.s. if this doesn’t sound like real “Change,” I don’t know what does.
Filed under: health, health insurance, healthcare, high deductible health plan, hsa education, politics | Tagged: cdh, high deductible health plan, hsa, hsa education, politics, what is an hsa
Ohhhh, so McCain isn’t going to come up with a brand new tax for employers. He’s come up with a brand new tax for employees–I get it. The net effect is clearly pushing people out into the open market to purchase their insurance. I am all in favor of the strategy of ending employment based health care, but McCain’s tactic of pushing people out to fend for themselves will be a disaster.
Actually, McCain’s proposal offers those without insurance from their employers an opportunity to have some protection for themselves and their families. Yes, they will have to step up and take some initiative, but McCain believes that the majority of American’s are bright enough to do so. As for employers, the McCain credit allows individuals to supplement further a cost which employers have been pushing back on employees for years. Employers who walk away from group coverage do themselves no favors from a tax perspective or a competitive perspective. I love it that people are digging into the health care options and talking about it. Let’s hope our new administration, whomever it may be can put their words into action for the better of our nation’s health. But as you probably know, health begins at home, so we all need to get educated and get involved in our own well being.