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The Conservative Health Care Proposal - McCain (and Bush) Redux |
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“The truth is there’s nobody else trying to do anything bold,” said Burr.
That’s Senator Burr’s reasoning for releasing a woefully inadequate Republican “alternative” to health care reform proposals now being formulated in Washington, DC. What a ringing endorsement!
Indeed, the plan formulated by Sens. Burr and Coburn, with the help of Chuck Grassley, reads very much like a default proposal as opposed to something with, say, some new ideas.
Let’s go down the list, shall we?
- A tax credit to pay for health care? Check.
- Health savings accounts? Check.
- More folks in private insurance? Check.
- Specifically, pushing people out of Medicare and Medicaid in favor of private insurance? Check.
The heart of the plan, like John McCain and George Bush’s defeated plans, is a tax credit of up to $5,710 per family to pay for private health care. As Media Matters Action Network points out, this isn’t nearly enough to make health care anything close to affordable:
According to the National Health Care Coalition: “The annual premium for an employer health plan covering a family of four averaged nearly $12,700. The annual premium for single coverage averaged over $4,700.”
That means a family that makes, say, $30,000 a year and can only find expensive private health insurance in their area because of the insurance industry’s monopoly (more on that later today), will have to pay about one quarter of their income in health care costs every year after the tax credit. Does that sound affordable to you?
We already defeated this plan in the November elections, remember? Barack Obama won the election because of his health care plan, and McCain was defeated because of his. This plan is McCain’s plan (and Bush’s plan). It won’t work. It’s old news. And it was already rejected.
(also posted at the NOW! blog)
