Why no discussion of the Candidates health care plans?

[Boatdrinks]

This is a pretty big issue and one that many will be affected by. A recent NY Times article capsulized McCain's and Obama's plans. McCain wants to end the tax break for employer provided health insurance and give only a $5000 tax credit. This means any value of your employer paid health insurance that exceeds $5000 will be subject to INCOME TAXES! Put in perspective, a family health care plan averages about $13000 a year. That would be an additional $8000 in "income" for a given year. This plan sucks for anyone who has health insurance through their job. What a solution. Some people in this country don't have insurance, so lets screw the ones who do. This "plan" on screwing anyone who has good insurance will preclude me from even considering voting for McCain. I'd imagine just about anyone who has health insurance through their employer would come up on the wrong end of this equation. It's very surprising that this issue isn't being talked about more as it would have a big impact. Seems everyone wants to talk about nonsense issues like abortion or how "liberal" Obama is instead of paying attention to the ONLY thing that should matter in politics. Your personal bottom line...ie your wallet.

[elegantelliotoffen]

This is a pretty big issue and one that many will be affected by. A recent NY Times article capsulized McCain's and Obama's plans. McCain wants to end the tax break for employer provided health insurance and give only a $5000 tax credit. This means any value of your employer paid health insurance that exceeds $5000 will be subject to INCOME TAXES! Put in perspective, a family health care plan averages about $13000 a year. That would be an additional $8000 in "income" for a given year. This plan sucks for anyone who has health insurance through their job. What a solution. Some people in this country don't have insurance, so lets screw the ones who do. This "plan" on screwing anyone who has good insurance will preclude me from even considering voting for McCain. I'd imagine just about anyone who has health insurance through their employer would come up on the wrong end of this equation. It's very surprising that this issue isn't being talked about more as it would have a big impact. Seems everyone wants to talk about nonsense issues like abortion or how "liberal" Obama is instead of paying attention to the ONLY thing that should matter in politics. Your personal bottom line...ie your wallet.

 

The media doesn't give a sh-- about the candidates policies, all they care about is the "horse race".

[finknottle]

This is a pretty big issue and one that many will be affected by. A recent NY Times article capsulized McCain's and Obama's plans. McCain wants to end the tax break for employer provided health insurance and give only a $5000 tax credit. This means any value of your employer paid health insurance that exceeds $5000 will be subject to INCOME TAXES! Put in perspective, a family health care plan averages about $13000 a year. That would be an additional $8000 in "income" for a given year. This plan sucks for anyone who has health insurance through their job. What a solution. Some people in this country don't have insurance, so lets screw the ones who do. This "plan" on screwing anyone who has good insurance will preclude me from even considering voting for McCain. I'd imagine just about anyone who has health insurance through their employer would come up on the wrong end of this equation. It's very surprising that this issue isn't being talked about more as it would have a big impact. Seems everyone wants to talk about nonsense issues like abortion or how "liberal" Obama is instead of paying attention to the ONLY thing that should matter in politics. Your personal bottom line...ie your wallet.

 

I agree - no substantive discussion. I think it might be a hangover from early in the primary when Obama and Clinton were going at it.

 

Regarding your points, put it another way. Anybody who does not have insurance through their employer is screwed right now because they don't get the same tax break that companies do. Why should they pay more for the same plan as you?

 

I believe that the thesis underlying McCains approach is that companies should get out of the business of providing healthcare. The argument is that providing them a tax write-off maintains the current approach, which hinders plan portability and forces many people to stay with an employer that they might otherwise leave. It makes the disparity between individually purchased insurance and employer-provided insurance so great that individuals choose to go uninsured.

 

To me this is the crux of the problem with health insurance, and is the reason why I think Obama's plan will fail. The uninsured are guaranteed medical treatment by law - that's why our emergancu rooms are flooded. Hospitals and doctors recoup their expenses by charging higher premiums to the insured and fees to those paying for service. As those rates rise, even more drop out of the system, and the effect snowballs. Untill you make coverage mandatory for treatment - which Obama pointedly does not, the issue on which he differentiated his plan from Clintons - the rates on those who have it will continue to spiral out of control. In fairness to Obama I don't think McCain addresses this either - I havn't bothered to look. I'm assuming that both plans will fail.

[UConn James]

This is an issue where I, too, have been alarmed at the lack of discussion. However, I would say to anyone who's going to originate a topic on PPP, please provide something to go on from both angles --- it shows you're actually interested rather than making some partisan point or other.

 

These are some rather good primers:

Obama plan

McCain plan

Comparison b/w the two plans

 

Obama plan:

Obama would argue that I am wrong about the notion that he has no effective cost containment ideas. In this section of his plan he argues he will contain, if not reduce costs, with a long list of proposals.

 

He would reinsure employer plans for a portion of their catastrophic costs. This would reduce employer costs but it would do so by simply shifting them onto the government. He runs the risk of shifting these costs away from a market that now has incentives to manage them to a big government program that likely will not have the same incentives to confront and manage them. I don’t see this as cost saving as much as just cost shifting.

...

This Democratic proposal is all about access—getting just about everyone covered. Getting everyone into this unsustainable system will then make things even more unsustainable creating an imperative for a second wave of real cost containment when the feel good list of cost containment proposals now in their plans falls short. My sense is that most Democratic health policy experts already know this but see no other political alternative.

 

I'm probably not alone in my qualms about this kind of tinkering that doesn't really accomplish anything. Getting the federal govt involved in the reinsurance business is just asking for bad news. He plans to spend a boatload of $ upfront to first get everyone in the system, then preaches that his cost savings (where so many others' cost savings plans haven't held water) will keep the annual cost at $50-65B, which many say isn't feasible (even Hillary has it at $100B), even with an optimistic view. Like most of the criticism about Obama up to this point, his plan is a little vague in how it will actually cut costs. His plan takes a big bite that I'm not sure the country can chew. Then again, we can't keep up the current stresses on the system before it breaks for everyone.

 

McCain plan:

He has a pretty classic conservative viewpoint. Reduce costs, and more people will be able to have access to health insurance. I think he's intimating that the best thing would be for people to purchase their own insurance in a market-based way. Some of the tenets in his plan have me making a face. Short on details of how his changes would impact a broad range of average people... from the sick vs. the healthy, the old vs. the young as it relates to the possibility of employers dumping their insurance programs and giving employees the difference in wages and the deal with the $5K tax credit. There's a lot in his plan that makes me believe that it could actually substantially increase the number of people who are uninsured. Also, there's the problem of... if he picks Romney as his VP as many in the Republican circles are leaning toward, it opens up a can of worms on this issue. Then again, living w/in the Boston market, I heard lots about this at the time and there are major differences in the size, scope and fundamental structure of healthcare in Mass. and simple geography/logistics as opposed to how such a plan would work in other states or nationwide. The Mass plan has spurned health care proposals in other states (California? and here in CT with the Charter Oak Health Plan) to cover the uninsured with lower-cost plans; I think encouraging individual state-by-state plans would be a more practical solution than one-size-fits-all on the federal level.

 

Right now, I'm looking at both and not liking either one overmuch.

[Boatdrinks]

I agree - no substantive discussion. I think it might be a hangover from early in the primary when Obama and Clinton were going at it.

 

Regarding your points, put it another way. Anybody who does not have insurance through their employer is screwed right now because they don't get the same tax break that companies do. Why should they pay more for the same plan as you?

 

I believe that the thesis underlying McCains approach is that companies should get out of the business of providing healthcare. The argument is that providing them a tax write-off maintains the current approach, which hinders plan portability and forces many people to stay with an employer that they might otherwise leave. It makes the disparity between individually purchased insurance and employer-provided insurance so great that individuals choose to go uninsured.

 

 

Look, if your point is "why should they pay more than you?" then just tear down our entire existing system and go to nationalized health care. Some will always pay more than others in a capitalist society no matter what the product. And why should companies get out of the healthcare business? Again this is the entire foundation of our system. While business in other nations do not have to deal with this burden, those nations have national health care. The problem with our system is high cost and not everyone is covered. Therefore why not do something for those who the system is not working for, rather than trying to bring everyone with good insurance "down" to their level? Our system is what it is. Address the 44million or so uninsured and leave the rest of us alone. No one is forced to stay with an employer. And forget about portability. One of the reasons I wanted my job was great benefits. If you don't like yours, get a different job with better bennies. Either keep the parts of our system that work or tear down the whole thing and nationalize it.

[finknottle]

Look, if your point is "why should they pay more than you?" then just tear down our entire existing system and go to nationalized health care. Some will always pay more than others in a capitalist society no matter what the product. And why should companies get out of the healthcare business? Again this is the entire foundation of our system. While business in other nations do not have to deal with this burden, those nations have national health care. The problem with our system is high cost and not everyone is covered. Therefore why not do something for those who the system is not working for, rather than trying to bring everyone with good insurance "down" to their level? Our system is what it is. Address the 44million or so uninsured and leave the rest of us alone. No one is forced to stay with an employer. And forget about portability. One of the reasons I wanted my job was great benefits. If you don't like yours, get a different job with better bennies. Either keep the parts of our system that work or tear down the whole thing and nationalize it.

 

Hey, I'm just trying to lay out the thinking behind McCains approach, not endorse it. My point is *precisely* that it is all moot if you don't ensure everybody. If nationalization is what it takes, so be it. Although frankly I don't see anything wrong with simply having a federal mandate to get insurance from an accrediated entity, and then staying out of it (like car insurance is typically done at the state level).

 

But as to disparity in a capitalistic system, I think you miss my point. There's nothing wrong with people getting better or worse deals. The problem is when the federal government influences the choice and payoff via tax policy. If you want to influence behavior, you reward one option with a tax break. And if you are going to interfere with the free market, you ought to have a compelling reason. The current policy effectively nudges people away from getting insurance on their own and towards either taking employment with companies large enough to offer a good health plan, or forgoing it entirely and passing on the costs to others. Is this really a desirable economic policy?

[finknottle]

This is an issue where I, too, have been alarmed at the lack of discussion. However, I would say to anyone who's going to originate a topic on PPP, please provide something to go on from both angles --- it shows you're actually interested rather than making some partisan point or other.

 

These are some rather good primers:

Obama plan

McCain plan

Comparison b/w the two plans

 

Thanks - interesting links.

[UConn James]

Bump.