McCain’s Health Care Proposal: Insure the Healthy and the Wealthy

“I campaigned in New Hampshire against big government–mandated healthcare and for a free market solution to the problem of unavailable and unaffordable health care.” [Conservative Political Action Conference, 2/7/08]

In supporting free market healthcare problems, Senator McCain is leaving every person for himself in the profit-driven healthcare industry and is essentially encouraging employers not to provide health care benefits. His plan will increase costs, decrease benefits, and do nothing to help the 47 million Americans without health insurance.

McCain camp working out healthcare details, Aides struggle to sort out his promises - Boston Globe

"He says the country must provide access to healthcare for all our citizens, and that 'we need to help people who need it.' But McCain also wants to shrink government's role in healthcare and doesn't want to impose regulations on insurance companies. As a result, McCain's aides have been scrambling to come up with ways to satisfy those who want more coverage without violating what they call McCain's conservative principles on the issue."

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Health Care Premiums as Taxable Income: Senator McCain wants to add a new tax on working families by making health care premiums part of taxable income. This would essentially shift the burden of this tax from employers onto workers. To try to defray this additional cost, he has proposed giving people tax credits, but these tax credits do not come close to covering the costs. In fact, the proposed tax credit would cover less than half the average health premium, leaving working families to pay the difference.

Workers vs Big Insurance Companies, Not a fair fight: Senator McCain, in line with his free market philosophy, is working towards leaving Americans at the mercy of an unregulated private insurance market. As a profit driven sector, the health insurance industry would be free to exclude people with health care needs, charge excessive amounts, and limit benefits. Insurance companies would be able to refuse to cover people with preexisting conditions or high health risks, and seniors will have to struggle to receive health insurance.

Lower Quality Health Insurance: Senator McCain's proposal would allow companies to create nationwide programs based in the states with the lowest requirements for services provided. In the vast majority of states, the following services are mandated, but under McCain's plan, they could be excluded.

  • Emergency Room Care
  • Direct Access to OB/GYN
  • Diabetes
  • Mental Health Parity
  • Off-Label Prescription Drug Use
  • Chiropractors
  • Post-Mastectomy Breast Reconstruction
  • Clinical Trials

Our health care system is in shambles, we need a president who will make positive reforms for working families. John McCain will increase costs, decrease benefits, and decrease availability of insurance. He will transfer the burden of acquiring health insurance from the employers to workers, and leave Americans to fight for health care on their own against major corporations.

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Current Health Care Crisis - The Facts

  • Premium costs are rising three times faster than wages or inflation.
  • The average premium for family health insurance is expected to double by 2016 if changes are not made.
  • Every 30 seconds someone files for "medical bankruptcy."
  • Since 2000, 50% of employers who had been offering retiree health insurance have stopped because of rising costs.
  • Pharmaceutical company CEOs average $4.36 million a year. Health insurance CEOs average $8.75 million a year.
  • 90% of Americans say the US healthcare system needs to undergo fundamental changes or be rebuilt entirely.

Click here for more alarming facts about the current state of America's healthcare system.

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In a 26,419-person survey sponsored by the AFL-CIO and Working America, results show that our country's health care system is failing even those that are insured. One in three say their families had to skip medical care because of cost, a quarter had serious problems paying for the care they needed and 79 percent say health care is an important voting issue.

The survey was conducted between January 14 and March 3, 2008 and can be accessed at http://www.healthcaresurvey.aflcio.org/.

Click here to see the Summary of Results from the survey. Click here to read the personal health care stories.

Click here to see a study from the Economic Policy Institute comparing Obama and McCain's healthcare plans.

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