McCain Wants To End Corp. Tax Deductions on Healthcare

[Yavin4]

Let me repeat that, McCain Wants To End Corp. Tax Deductions on Healthcare.

Here's what this means to all working Americans. Your place of work would no longer be able to write off the cost of providing you with healthcare, sooooo, they will stop offering it as a benefit, which is what McCain wants.

In its place, McCain wants to give every American a tax credit to buy their own healthcare.

Thus, you, Joe and Jane Public, would have to go directly to the Aetnas, the Blue Cross/Blue Shields, and the Kaisers of the world to buy your own health insurance for you and your family.

This plan is insane, and it will quadruple the current number of uninsured in this country, thereby making your healthcare costs soar.

Why is this race even close?

[book_worm]

1. Obama MUST make this a major issue.

[Ian David]

2. You have a link for that? n/t

[Yavin4]

5. Link

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/04/03/mccain_camp_working_out_healthcare_details/

Excerpt:

The crux of McCain's healthcare plan is to end a tax break for employers who provide health insurance premiums now utilized by many workers. That would be replaced with a tax credit worth as much as $5,000 per family for the purchase of health insurance. McCain would also promote cost controls and competition among insurance companies. He has also joined with Democrats to support legislation that would allow the purchase of prescription drugs from Canada.

But McCain's plan has no guarantee that people could get insurance, and no requirement for people to do so. McCain believes his plan would make insurance more affordable, which would bring it within reach of many more families. But many critics say that failing to require insurance companies to provide coverage could leave millions of people without affordable medical care.

[Ian David]

7. Holy shit, you're right! n/t

[kimmylavin]

11. $5,000, huh?

I read once that having healthcare benefits provided by your employer was equal to having something like an additional $15,000 in your salary.

There go the Repubs, playing fair again...

[central scrutinizer]

19. Wow, a tax credit for up to $5000 per family

Too bad health insurance is more like $12.000 per family. So, this is going to help me how? Instead of a tax increase we get a huge new expense that goes straight to the insurance companies.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

25. Exactly. Look for basic catastrophic health care policies that cost $10000 a year.

With an at least $5000 deductible.

Why is this even close?!? :banghead:

[Cha]

26. mccain's campaign would be dead without

his base and life support the mainstream mediawhores.

[AZBlue]

29. And even if the cost were $5K, you'd have to pay that out & then wait for the end of the year credit

How does that help anyone without an extra $5K to throw around??

It's an idiotic plan put forth by an idiot.

[rox63]

3. And if you've ever had a major illness or chronic condition

You won't be able to get any health insurance, because the insurance companies won't touch you.

[Yavin4]

4. Exactly, Which Is Why I Ask The Question...

Why is this election even close?

[PA Democrat]

33. Because the corporate media ignores this very important issue.

Maybe because they are too busy collecting advertising money from the corrupt for-profit health care system? It is really pathetic that the average American has NO idea of just how BAD McCain's health care plan is.

BTW, I have seen some recent back pedaling on this by McCain's people. Now they are saying that what McCain REALLY plans to do is to tax the EMPLOYEES for the cost of employer-provided health insurance. So if your employer spends $10,000 a year for insurance for you, that amount would be added to your taxable income.

McCain has flip-flopped all over this issue. But we won't be hearing THAT in the MSM.

Here is McCain's plan as of today. Tomorrow it will probably be something completely different from Mr. "Straight Talk".

The Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting has proposed that everyone buying health insurance get a refundable tax credit, $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families. At the same time, he would treat employer contributions toward health insurance like income, meaning workers would have to pay income, but not payroll, taxes on it.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25555651/

[OnionPatch]

18. And McCain flatly rejected the idea. "That would be mandating what the free enterprise

system does!"

How did we get to the point where commerce is not supposed to have any rules? Why is it that every other system in the world has rules, but somehow rules on trade and commerce are evil, even when there is great harm to people without them? :banghead:

[katandmoon]

6. The race is close because Obama is failing to sell himself and too chickenshit to call McCain out

Obama needs to grow a spine and some balls FAST and stop calling McCain "honorable" and stop using words like "disingenous" -- Obama needs to call McCain a CRAZY LIAR. If Obama doesn't stop acting like he's too good to get down and dirty, when that is obviously working for McCain, this election will pass Obama by.

[Ian David]

8. I predict that during their second debate, McCain will try to physically assault Obama...

... and will need to be physically restrained by the Secret Service.

[Hippo_Tron]

24. It's still summer, chill out

Obama is busy wearing the media out on foreign policy so that in the fall when people are paying attention, they will want to talk about health care and the economy. That's when he will hammer McGramps on this kind of thing.

[NewJeffCT]

9. Let me not mince words here - that would be a fucking disaster

Since the average cost of health insurance is $11,000 for a family of four, a $5,000 tax credit on next year's income tax is not going to help those people pay nearly $1,000/month out of pocket until they get the $5,000 credit NEXT YEAR. Right now, millions of people are barely affording insurance now with their employer picking up half to 3/4 of the tab - imagine if that goes away?

And, what about the people with pre-existing conditions? Oops, they're really fucked. Might as well drop dead, because suicide might look good.

And, right now, if you work for a large employer, they use their size to advantage for leverage when negotiating rates with an insurance company. If everybody is left to their own devices, they will have no leverage with the insurance companies at all. Don't want to pay $2,000/month? Tough shit, because the next guy will cost you $2,100/month, and if you wait longer, it will be $2,200...

The only people with health insurance will be CEOs, CFOs and other senior executives who negotiate coverage into their compensation packages. Everybody else will be lining up at the emergency room for treatment, and only when their condition gets really bad and possibly too late to treat.

[Yavin4]

12. It's Healthcare for the Wealthy and the Healthy

but not the wise.

The only way that private insurance companies make money is to minimize what they pay out on claims, and maximize what they take in as premiums.

It would be more profitable to cover a smaller number of wealthy and healthy people whilst leaving a larger number of people uninsured.

[donco6]

10. I'll never get coverage.

I had cancer. I'd be toast.

[Yavin4]

13. You, and Others Like You, and People with kids

Overweight people

Too tall and too short people

People with a family history of major disease.

Etc. etc. etc.

McCain's plan would literally destroy the American healthcare system as we know it.

[taught_me_patience]

14. This is a very bad plan

I don't think that it would ever fly. If it did, I'd have to seriously consider leaving the country.

[Danger Mouse]

16. Not much would make me think of becoming an ex-pat....

but that would probably seal the deal for me.

[Danger Mouse]

15. Obama MUST make this a major issue.

This plan is ODIOUS, EVIL, and typical RESCUM BULLSHIT.
It would quite literally cause deaths to skyrocket across the country.

[Danger Mouse]

17. Kick.

[unblock]

20. wow! a proposal that both workers AND employers will hate!

why does mccain hate business?
why does mccain hate employment?
why does mccain hate healthcare?

[unblock]

21. hey, is this ANOTHER tax mccain wants to raise?

[PinkyisBlue]

22. I'm sure McCain wants to keep his own taxpayer-funded health insurance.

With his health history (multiple myelomas, etc), no insurance company would touch him. Yet he wants to subject ordinary people to something he knows nothing about and will never have to deal with.

[LiberalAndProud]

23. I knew that.

Really, I heard it sometime in the middle of the Obama/Clinton primary battle. It appalled me then and it appalls me now. Thanks for the reminder that McCain does not have an inkling about anything. No Thing.

[TexasObserver]

27. this may be his worst idea yet

[OmahaBlueDog]

28. FWIW, it would never make it out of committee in congress

.. and it would never get through the Senate.

[PBS Poll-435]

30. ROFL....

WTF is wrong with him?

Corporate-paid health care is not taxed unless you are more than a 2% shareholder in a "Subchapter S" corporation.

[Vinca]

31. I read somewhere this would quadruple the uninsured.

That's probably a low estimate. In any case, what good is your insurance if you go to use it and coverage is denied? We need to purge the insurance companies and go to universal, single payer. The past couple of days I've been wondering if the citizens can bypass the government on healthcare and set up a nonprofit system of our own. Just like BC/BS in the old days, when it was nonprofit, affordable and covered everything.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

32. Kick.

[samsingh]

34. mccain really does hate the American people