9/16/08

Issue Advocacy


Jonathan Cohn is a senior editor at The New Republic and an expert in health care policy. Here's his piece today on McCain's health care plan.

Cohn's also got a great article and sidebar online for Self magazine. The first is an easy read and details the trouble with the individual insurance market. The second asks if the candidates can fix health care.

Ezra's also all over the topic today. Here are the highlights:
...John McCain's health care plan: Its first-order effect would be to take employer health insurance away from 20 million Americans who currently have it. And this estimate is on the low-end...

...That, of course, is not the whole story. Kicked out of employer pools and pocketing a shiny new tax credit, a fair number may seek care on the individual market. The problem, though, is that care on the individual market is far worse...

...The plan also has a Trojan horse. The tax credit that meant to help people purchase individual market insurance is not indexed to health costs -- which rise much faster than inflation -- or really to anything at all. That means, year-by-year, it buys you less...

...Then there's McCain's plan to bulldoze state regulations and create a truly national market..."In a national market where state licenses are not required, insurers will charter in places where regulations are scarce"..."forty-seven states now require mental health parity, forty-nine states require coverage of breast cancer reconstructive surgery, and twenty-nine require coverage of cervical cancer screening. All of these requirements...would be eliminated under the McCain plan."...
Terrified, yet? Good. Keep reading.

awesome image courtesy Slate

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