• About
  • The Poetry of Protest

Show Me Progress

~ covering government and politics in Missouri – since 2007

Show Me Progress

Tag Archives: mhip

McSame's Weak Health Care Plan

30 Wednesday Apr 2008

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Elizabeth Edwards, health care, John McCain, Jonathan Cohn, mhip, missouri

Crossposted at EENR Blog.

A number of commenters have made the point that John McCain’s health care plan is horrible policy, but on such an important issue, it’s a point that bears repeating. Obama and Clinton have minor differences on health care between them compared to the chasm that separates their essentially good plans from McCain’s terrible ideas, which are really just out of the George W. Bush playbook.

McCain’s plan has two main features. The first is a refundable tax credit worth $5,000 per family to defray the costs of purchasing health insurance coverage. This would be offset in the federal budget by cancelling the tax deduction employers get for providing health care benefits to employees. In other words, the federal government would provide financial incentives to end employer-based coverage and replace it with a system in which the burden is entirely on each individual.

Elizabeth Edwards takes this proposal down nicely. She points out that on average, health insurance costs an American family $12,000 per year. But most American families and individuals have plans that are provided through their employer, who by virtue of their larger size are able to negotiate lower insurance rates than individuals looking for coverage on their own. The $5,000 the family gets from the government will not make up for the $9,000 that the employer contributes yearly on average to an employee’s premiums, and the individual will pay a larger premium because they don’t have the bargaining power of larger numbers.

More below the flip.

It appears McCain was also sensitive to the criticism that he would leave out those who, just like John McCain, have preconditions that would lead insurers to deny coverage or charge exorbitant rates. So he is proposing to set up a “Guaranteed Access Plan”, state-run high risk pools. States would pool all citizens with health conditions that would price them out of normal coverage, then bargain with private insurers to get those citizens covered. It sounds good, except as Jon Cohn points out, those pools already exist in 30 states (Missouri has such a pool, MHIP), and they are expensive and poorly regulated. For up to a year, most people aren’t even covered for the conditions that got them blocked from regular insurance in the first place, so they have to pay out of pocket for care alongside their high insurance premiums. Cohn runs through the case of Elizabeth Edwards, if she were in such a pool:

It turns out that North Carolina, where Edwards lives, doesn’t actually have a high-risk pool in operation right now. (It hopes to launch one next year.) But neighboring South Carolina does. Pollitz was able to track down published figures with the rates the South Carolina pool would charge a 50-year-old man. (Edwards, a 57-year-old woman, would actually pay more.) And according to those figures, Edwards’ most cost-effective option would be to choose a plan that had monthly premiums of $867 for six months, followed by $693 every month thereafter.

That plan comes with a $1,500 deductible; in other words, every year Edwards would have to pay $1,500 in medical bills before the insurance kicked in. After that, she’d have to deal with the cost-sharing until she had spent another $3,500 out of her pocket.

If you do the math, you’ll see that means Edwards would end up paying more than $14,000 a year in insurance and out-of-pocket medical expenses. (At least for now. The rates go up in July.)

And for the first year, Edwards’ cancer treatments wouldn’t be covered, so she would have to pay for all medicine and treatment – potentially $100,000 – out of pocket. I suppose it’s better than being uninsured altogether (she would be covered for treatment if she had the flu, or a broken arm), but not by much.

There’s another insidious side to McCain’s plan. Some states actually regulate insurance companies more strictly than the federal government, but under McCain, the looser federal regulations would supercede all state regulations. For example, in states that have passed a ban on cherrypicking the insured based on pre-existing conditions, the federal law would repeal the ban.

To sum up, under McCain, you would stop getting benefits at work and start paying more for coverage on your own. If you have a medical condition when your employer drops coverage, you might be lucky enough to get covered, but you’ll have to pay a lot more for it, and pay out of pocket until your new, expensive coverage sets in. Does any of this sound like a good idea?

Subscribe

  • Entries (RSS)
  • Comments (RSS)

Archives

  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007

Categories

  • campaign finance
  • Claire McCaskill
  • Democratic Party News
  • Healthcare
  • Hillary Clinton
  • Interview
  • Josh Hawley
  • media criticism
  • meta
  • Missouri General Assembly
  • Missouri Governor
  • Missouri House
  • Missouri Senate
  • Resist
  • Roy Blunt
  • social media
  • Standing Rock
  • Town Hall
  • Uncategorized
  • US Senate

Meta

  • Log in

Blogroll

  • Balloon Juice
  • Crooks and Liars
  • Digby
  • I Spy With My Little Eye
  • Lawyers, Guns, and Money
  • No More Mister Nice Blog
  • The Great Orange Satan
  • Washington Monthly
  • Yael Abouhalkah

Donate to Show Me Progress via PayPal

Your modest support helps keep the lights on. Click on the button:

Blog Stats

  • 616,796 hits

Powered by WordPress.com.

 

Loading Comments...