NPR: Kudos to McCain for his healthcare solutions

Kudos to McCain for his healthcare solutions

Mindy Finn, Political Strategist
Voters are looking for candidates to act presidential and provide solutions to Americans' looming concerns - and as gas prices and unemployment rise, health care concerns have risen as well.

The candidates have been providing solutions to improve our health care system, although their plans are based on vastly contrasting visions.

Senator John McCain released his plan, what his aides are calling a "radical" rethinking of health coverage, which focuses on market-based solutions that put choices more in the hands of individuals and families and less in the hands of corporations.

McCain's plan flies in the face of the Democratic plans - supported by Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama - which call for coverage mandates, what we know as universal health care.

McCain favors tax incentives over mandates and his plan is designed to avoid direct regulation of insurers. Both Clinton and Obama, however, want to stick with the employer-based system - the system that McCain and many right-of-center Americans see as the basis of the growing health insurance debacle - and the Democrats want to impose new regulations on insurers.

It comes down to a fight about the economics of health care, and two fundamentally different philosophies for easing Americans' health care anxiety - one that puts control in the hands of individuals and families vs. one that puts control in the hands of the government.

Ironically, a debate over health care, which presumably stands for stronger, healthier and happier people may well turn into a heated, angry battle - between the candidates, and also between 3rd party interest groups.

Already, the SEIU, the Services Employees International Union, is running television ads endorsing Obama and opposing McCain's health care plan. The ad features individuals griping about McCain's plan, likening it to President Bush's, and saying how the plan will make it harder for poor and sick Americans to get coverage.

One of the gripes Democrats have with McCain's plan is that they say it doesn't account for the poor and those with pre-existing conditions. McCain says that his plan will include a GAP option, which is a last resort option to give coverage for those who can't get coverage on their own. Democrats don't buy it.

With the Democratic primary raging on, McCain needs to claim his rightful spot in the stories of the day, and at the same time, he seeks to drum up conservative support for his policies -- perhaps from conservatives who are not so thrilled about him being the Republican nominee.

Nevertheless, whoever is elected president will be expected to come to office with a real solution to our impending health insurance crisis. Kudos to McCain for putting solutions on the table, and opening up real debate on the issue.

8:59 PM ET | 05- 2-2008 | permalink

Comments (Send a comment)

None of the candidates have a viable health care plan, but McCain's is the worst non-solution. My family's experience puts the lie to McCain's fairy tale. All candidates assume that insurance or tax breaks are the key, when the obvious problem is cost. All their solutions simply move costs around, but do not address them. We pay way more per capita than any other country's citizens and we get less for the money.

High cost in the private sector comes in these forms - excessive insurance premiums and excessive cost for drugs, hospital care, and tests. Any self-employed person with actual health problems knows this to be true. Private insurance companies like to make profit and also pay lobbyists, congressmen, and other political organizations about a billion dollars per year. Similar amounts are paid by drug companies and medical professional organizations. These billions of dollars come directly out of our citizen's pockets, as premiums and cost of drugs. Only about 60% of the premiums paid to private insurance companies actually end up paying for their subscribers' health care, while Medicare returns over 90% in the form of health care payments. This is the real measure of insurance efficiency and greed, and private insurance is least efficient and most greedy.

Being "insured" is a nebulous concept at best, if you can even get it. Any hint of chronic health problems renders us "uninsurable". In my state, it costs one person over $10,000 per year to get federally mandated "uninsurable" person "insurance" with a high deductible, and Wyoming is better than most.

Tax breaks don't help, when your income is low to moderate, or if you cannot get insurance. Tax breaks just move the costs around anyway.

Mindy Finn, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama have no clue what problems my family faces. All of my family members have "insurance" and yet we had over $25,000 unreimbursed health care expenses last year. I am self employed, my wife is disabled, and we have two kids. Tax breaks offer little help, since my income is moderate and our taxes are low to start with. If I were to have a health problem which interfered with my ability to make money, we would be rendered destitute.

Medicare and Medicaid cannot be held up as reasons that government insurance is unworkable, because both are designed to fail. Both are underfunded and poorly governed - BY DESIGN. I have seen both types of costs, and as much as private health care costs are ridiculously high, Medicare/aid reimbursements are ridiculously low. Having Congress determine the reimbursements is ridiculous.

Sent by Bob in Wyoming | 11:24 PM ET | 05-04-2008

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