Lost in the economic crisis, the lousy horserace numbers for McCain, and the personal attacks of the McCain camp is the ongoing health care crisis in the United States. With our current system, there remain 47 million without care and millions more who are underinsured. Cost issues exist alongside inequalities of care access. And now, with unemployment rising, the issue is becoming more acute.
Paul Krugman: Conservative Republicans still hate Medicare, and would kill it if they could — in fact, they tried to gut it during the Clinton years (thats what the 1995 shutdown of the government was all about). But so far they havent been able to pull that off.
So John McCain wants to destroy the health insurance of nonelderly Americans instead. But but Not good. Obama’s idea is different. Today, he signed on to the Health Care for America Now principles, which do not endorse specific legislation, but are compatible with single payer and other approaches. From a press release:
Today, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) signed the Health Care for America Now statement declaring that he is on the side of quality, affordable health care for all and opposed to leaving Americans on their own with unregulated health insurance.
There’s still plenty of room to argue about the best way to get there, but with a recession looming and people in danger of losing their jobs, this is not an issue that can be ignored any more. Expect it to be brought up in the town hall debate tomorrow – unlike the phoney stuff being brought up by McCain’s campaign and his increasingly shrill VP candidate, who caters only to the shrinking Republican base, this is an issue that all Americans actually care about.
“Health Care for America Now’s goal this year is to get the next President and a majority of Congress committed to the principles of quality, affordable health care for all and opposed to policies that would tax our benefits at work and leave us on our own with the unregulated, bureaucratic private insurance industry,” said Richard Kirsch, National Campaign Manager, Health Care for America Now. “With Senator Obama’s signature, we are taking a major step towards getting the next President and Congress to make comprehensive health care reform a priority in 2009.”
John McCain’s plan is anything but acceptable. Since it’s all about saving money and nothing else, he proposes, according to the WSJ: McCain Plans Federal Health Cuts…Medicare, Medicaid Spending Would Be Reduced to Offset Proposed Tax Credit
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Sen. McCain’s senior policy adviser, said Sunday that the campaign has always planned to fund the tax credits, in part, with savings from Medicare and Medicaid. Those government health-care programs serve seniors, poor families and the disabled. Medicare spending for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30 is estimated at $457.5 billion.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/6/124346/441/758/621648
Those of us who analyze health policy and trends for a living have struggled to follow John McCain’s health plan through its many seemingly-improvised changes. First he was taxing health benefits through both payroll and income tax. Then he said he only intended to apply income tax, which meant that his plan would create even larger deficits. Now he says there won’t be deficits, because he’s going to make up the cost of those tax credits by slashing Medicare and Medicaid.
When a candidate suddenly, almost whimsically changes the way he proposes to handle $1.3 trillion – which is the amount of money his plan puts in play over the next ten years – it’s time to get nervous.
We already knew the McCain plan was going to cost most Americans money (in at least three different ways.) Now we know it could jeopardize their medical care when they get older, too. The end result of this off-the-cuff planning could change the way Americans receive, or don’t receive, medical care in this country…at least three kinds of health “tax increases” (more accurately described as increased personal cost) under the McCain plan: a “slow bleed” for people who retain coverage as the tax credit falls behind inflation, a $,7000-plus spike for people who lose their coverage immediately, and an increase in out-of-pocket costs (and denials, etc.) for people who still have insurance. What do we get in return? According to that neutral study, three million uninsured would gain coverage – briefly. After five years the number of uncovered would go up.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/mccains-erratic-health-st_b_132242.html
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7/16/09 – Rep. John Flemming (R-LA): Under the current draft of the Democrat health care legislation, members of Congress are curiously exempt from the government-run health care option, keeping their existing health plans and services on Capitol Hill. If Members of Congress believe so strongly that government-run health care is the best solution for hard working American families, I think it only fitting that Americans see them lead the way. Public servants should always be accountable and responsible for what they are advocating, and I challenge the American people to demand this from their representatives.
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