CAPITAL GAINS
Jane Bryant Quinn
Vetting McCain’s Health Plan
Tax credits would move people out of group plans and into individual policies where the benefits aren't as good.
If you think that "The Market"—whatever market—always works for the best, you'll love John McCain's version of health insurance reform. It uses the tax code to shove you toward individual policies (more "choice!") and away from comprehensive, employersupported plans. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center puts the cost of his proposed subsidies at $1.3 trillion over 10 years.
But a funny thing happens on the way to spending that much money. Almost all of the subsidy goes to people who have health insurance already, says Sherry Glied, a professor of health policy at Columbia University. The Tax Policy Center figures that, after 10 years, the plan cuts the number of uninsured by only 1 million, out of 45.7 million now. Barack Obama's $1.6 trillion plan would take 34 million off the rolls of the uninsured.
McCain's idea is pretty simple. Tax the value of employer-paid health insurance as part of your regular income (62 percent of the nonelderly are in these plans). In return, he'd give everyone a refundable tax credit—$2,500 for individuals, $5,000 for family coverage—to offset the cost of any health policy they choose. Here's how the McCain plan falls out:
• Initially, most of the people in employer plans would get a bonus from the government . Their new tax credit would exceed the amount of extra taxes they owed. For the young and healthy, the bonus could be quite large. Older workers with health problems might get a minimal bonus but still do OK. Over the years, however, the value of the credit would be eroded by health-care inflation, and your tax cost would rise.
• If you already buy your own health insurance, the tax credit would chop your premium cost by $2,500 or $5,000 . The self-employed lose the deduction they get for health-insurance premiums but would generally still come out ahead (again, until inflation intervened).
• If you ' re uninsured, the tax credit helps you purchase coverage . The only hitch—a big one—is that you have to be able to afford the premiums up front. The tax credit comes later. The government will send it to the insurance company, which will apply it to your account.
- 1
- 2
- Next Page »
Loading Menu
Member Comments
Posted By: Oplis @ 11/02/2008 11:58:20 AM
Comment: If Dems do, ...McCain will lose!
There are more Dems registered than Republicans this time, and if the undecided Democrats vote along party lines, Obama will win. This is why it is so important to get out the vote on the Dem side, we have to get this republican policy out , and get a different policy in place. Whether you believe Obama will be as affective as he says or not, McCain , will not be affective in change policy at all, he will be a Bush clone,....no?....he wants to stay in Iraq, " stay the course",..he wants to keep tax breaks for Corp.s in place including oil companies, plus add additional cuts for the oil industry, he wants to keep the tax rates for wealthy Americans, at present rate, he has no health plan, no education plan, and no solution to the economic crisis. Obama , is just the opposite, he knows that if you broaden your tax base with new jobs , in the form of green jobs, and high tech jobs, because of new training, and put the wealthy back in the tax rate they had under Clinton, and bring the troops home , saving 150 billion per year, all of this combined will improve the economy in the long run, and in the short run, a tax break for the middle class, and the troops out of Iraq.
Posted By: Oplis @ 11/01/2008 4:34:54 PM
Comment: McCain's healthcare plan is just as good as the guy that gives it, full of holes! He wants to stay in the country of Iraq, and continue spending $150,000 ,000,000 .....that's billion okay......and keep in place a 300,000,000 dollar tax cut for big corperations, and the wealthy, and billions of tax cuts for the oil companies, ...buy up the morgages for the families of the housing crisis(which by the way is socialism) and then says he can balance the budget within his first term,...remember....he said yes to the moderators question ,..." can you balance the budget within your first term(Obama said no, because he doesn't suffer from demencia)! He ask Obama, where are you getting the money to do the things you say you're gonna do,..and then calls Obama a socialist, without saying where he , ...is going to get the money to do Bush! .....is he just lying???? You betcha' !!!
Posted By: cani77 @ 10/18/2008 8:24:56 PM
Comment: THE GREAT BUSH DEPRESSION
I follow an economist named Bob Proctor. He has called the top and bottom of every market crash since the 70s correctly.
He perfectly predicted the current meltdown and the picture he paints about what will happen next
is terrifying.He thinks it will be worse then the great depression.
The banks in the U.S. are going under one after the other. Countrywide ,Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch , Fanny and Freddy Mae ,AIG
The government took them over because they are bankrupt. Even with the goverment nationalizing hundreds of billions of dollars in debt the stock market is crashing
the credit markets are frozen and all of us may suffer beyond anything seen in generations
McCain just like Bush " doesn't understand the economy".
That not just my opinion its his own words. Not only does he not understand how to fix it but he does not understand how its been broken.
It is no surprise that he doesn't. The people that make up these securities use quantum mathematical models very few people understand.
Bush and McCain both can take the credit for this mess since they helped deregulate the laws that were protecting us.
Bush's economic advisor Phil Graham wrote the deregulation bill that allowed banks to take huge risks with all of our future.
Now, Phil Graham is the head of McCain's economic policy.He is also McCain's choice for the next secretary of the treasury.
No one in this country can afford for that to happen. The last time Bush met with his economic advisors was in March. He was the last to know somthing was wrong. Phil Graham had the guts to say that we are in a mental recession after he helped create the worst economy meltdown in our lifetime. Check out this link to the truth http://my.barackobama.com/keatingvideo
It will take the best and brightest minds in the world to get us out of this nightmare. As bad as Bush has done, McCain would be
even more destructive because things are in much worse shape. The next president will not inherit a budget surplus like Bush did but a crashing economy and a 11,600,000,000,000 (trillion) dollars deficit. Most of it Bush created and it will take decades to pay it back.
If you do what you have always done then you will get what you have always got.
When it comes to policy Bush and McCain are the same 90 percent of the time.
So why are the polls even close then ?
Mccains team just said they no longer want to talk about the economy.Instead they would like to spend time talking about obama
which means running the biggest smear campaign in history.
They think they can just tell you lies and you wont be smart enough to see through it
Let's teach him we are smarter than that
Stand up and hold them accountable
Bush isn't on the ballot this year but his policies are
Elect Obama Biden 2008
Check out this video of sarah palins interview and ask your self if she understands what she is talking about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r36Xc0GG4iQ