The Republicans are unveiling their ideas for a health care plan today. Unsurprisingly, the centerpiece of the plan involves tax cuts:
Individuals, the authors write, will have a “one-stop marketplace” to choose plans in the exchange, including the option of keeping their employer coverage and/or existing insurer. “Participating insurers,” meanwhile, would be required to “offer coverage to any individual — regardless of patient age or health history” though there is no mandate for an individual to purchase that insurance.
Where the plan seems likely to run into strong opposition is in its efforts to drastically move the insurance market away from employer-based or publicly operated plans. As championed by John McCain during the presidential campaign, The Patients’ Choice Act of 2009 effectively ends to tax breaks for employers who provide health coverage to their workers, choosing instead to give a $5,710 tax cut to families and a $2,290 cut to individuals to help them pay for health insurance coverage.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that this plan is not going to earn the Republican Party more votes in the 2010 and 2012 elections.
Under the America-hating GOP plan, 90 percent of the tax cuts would go to the richest Americans.
Just say no.
When will they learn? Never! Mired in the same old non-solutions. Thank Jupiter they are out of power.
Stay classy GOP, stay classy.
Well, that would be helpful except for the fact that people who are unemployed and uninsured probably don’t have that kind of money to freaking cut from their taxes. This just makes my head hurt.
We pretty firmly established that this was a bad idea and no one likes it when it was McCain’s baby, right? So why do they think it’s going to work now?
Yeah, let me choose from a “marketplace” of plans, each with it’s own loopholes designed to screw me over that would take a lawyer to spot.
Fuck that. I’m starting to wonder how I ever fell for their bullshit.
That would cover…band-aids. Maybe.
Argh. This fills me with such ire. Obviously the GOP has no contact with reality when it comes to paying for health insurance. Really I just want to scream.
To get some idea of how that “marketplace” would work out for the average American, see the picture accompanying Dan’s post below and imagine that the squirrel’s wallet is missing also.
That piece of shit is the best they could come up with? What the hell are they doing with all their time, playing solitaire?
Okay, I’ll be the whipping boy… Not only is this plan not bad, it’s not that different from what the Democrats’ plan is likely to look like.
First off, it’s a tax credit, not a deduction or a rate adjustment, so it doesn’t direct relative more money to the rich than to the poor. It’s pretty much a flat payment to every person, which is the same cash flow picture as under the left’s favorite proposal of having the government pay everyone’s premium under a national insurance system. But it preserves consumer choice and competition, which the left’s favorite proposal doesn’t.
Second, while Obama used the “he wants to take away your employer-sponsored health insurance!” to great political effect during the campaign, the truth is that the policy wonks on the right and the left, including those on Obama’s economic team like Austan Goolsbee, have long argued that we need to remove the tax deduction for employer-sponsored health insurance. It encourages overspending on health care, discourages job transitions, and criples the non-employer insurance market. And despite its political popularity, Obama and many congressional Democrats are coming round to this point of view as they look for a way to pay for their proposals.
Third, the proposal actualy tries to deal with the adverse selection problem, by requiring insurers to offer their package at one price to all takers. This is a big deal, because the adverse selection problem is usualy the Achilles’ heel of Republican health care reform ideas.
The bigest flaw in the proposal, from a policy wonk perspective, is the lack of a mandate, but for political reasons, the Democrats’ proposal is likely to lack a mandate (or at least a mandate with any teeth) too.
Will the proposal “earn votes”? Probably not, but the Democrat’s proposals probably won’t earn votes either. Most voters like the idea of health care reform, but most of them also like what they have now and fear change. The only people who will cheer what comes out of this process as a great leap forward are people who would have voted for the Democrats in any case.
Yada yada yada, DW. We heard you the first time you whined “tax cuts for the ultra-rich, death to America!”
Many businesses (small ones btw) offer health insurance in part because they CAN get a tax break.
God, the Republicans are the most dangerous terrorist organization in America.
If only someone had tried this at some point in the last 8 years!!! We wouldn’t have the troubles we have today, oh Lawdy!
Will @ 11:
🙂