McCheney's Health Care Tax

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

So anybody checked that out? He wants to tax you according to how much your employer pays for your health care. Of course, there's a $5k tax credit he will graciously give you, but the average family's health care costs are about $12k.
As someone on expensive meds, with the most expensive mental health condition to treat, this makes me very nervous. I won't have to pay anything (yet) as I'm not on Starbucks' health care plan, but my parents would have to pay a hefty amount, as all of us are on at least one medication, with my parents and youngest sister on four or more. And none of them are cheap.

Quotes from his website:

Americans Are Worried About Health Care Costs. The problems with health care are well known: it is too expensive and 47 million people living in the United States lack health insurance.
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John McCain Will Reform Health Care Making It Easier For Individuals And Families To Obtain Insurance. An important part of his plan is to use competition to improve the quality of health insurance with greater variety to match people's needs, lower prices, and portability. Families should be able to purchase health insurance nationwide, across state lines.

John McCain Will Reform The Tax Code To Offer More Choices Beyond Employer-Based Health Insurance Coverage. While still having the option of employer-based coverage, every family will receive a direct refundable tax credit - effectively cash - of $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families to offset the cost of insurance. Families will be able to choose the insurance provider that suits them best and the money would be sent directly to the insurance provider. Those obtaining innovative insurance that costs less than the credit can deposit the remainder in expanded Health Savings Accounts.
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John McCain Proposes Making Insurance More Portable. Americans need insurance that follows them from job to job. They want insurance that is still there if they retire early and does not change if they take a few years off to raise the kids
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John McCain's Plan Cares For The Traditionally Uninsurable. John McCain understands that those without prior group coverage and those with pre-existing conditions have the most difficulty on the individual market, and we need to make sure they get the high-quality coverage they need.

John McCain Will Work With States To Establish A Guaranteed Access Plan. As President, John McCain will work with governors to develop a best practice model that states can follow - a Guaranteed Access Plan or GAP - that would reflect the best experience of the states to ensure these patients have access to health coverage. One approach would establish a nonprofit corporation that would contract with insurers to cover patients who have been denied insurance and could join with other state plans to enlarge pools and lower overhead costs. There would be reasonable limits on premiums, and assistance would be available for Americans below a certain income level.

John McCain Will Promote Proper Incentives. John McCain will work with Congress, the governors, and industry to make sure this approach is funded adequately and has the right incentives to reduce costs such as disease management, individual case management, and health and wellness programs.

There's some other stuff--he wants to restructure the medical care system (not a bad idea in and of itself), but the rest of this sucks.

From Joe Klein's McCain's Health Care Tax Increase at Time:

"But make no mistake: this plan will do little or nothing for those who do not have insurance now--unless they are young and healthy--and it may well hurt a fair number of workers, especially unionized workers, who get gold-plated benefits from their employers."

That's part of why this worries me--my mother's a teacher in a unionized school district. We have really, really good insurance and would pay through the nose on the remaining $7,000 to $10,000 of un-creditable health care taxes.
I have no idea what it would do to someone like Chatty (you're on medicare, right?), as I see no specifics as to what would be done with those on Medicare and so on.

Thoughts?

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

The 'plan' is made of soundbites to look as appealing as possible when in reality is a corporate welfare scheme.
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All republican proposals, are based on 'the market'. That in itself isn't bad, provided that the interests of the common citizen were on top, but (as with the drug plan for seniors) those plans tend to be very one sided for the HMOs and drug companies. Doing it properly would require regulation and oversight, and they hate the idea of losing 2 percentage points (or way more) on profits  when they can milk the population for money and cover only those who are less likey to get sick.

The only moral of the market is to make money (and hopefully quick), that's why we need regulation, but that will not come from the republicans. That's tantamount to heresy.

[Sibling Chatty]

People like me are not meant to survive this. As I'm Medicare with catastrophic care back up by Medicaid, and my healthcare costs per MONTH now (BEFORE ANY EXPENSIVE TREATMENT) exceed my yearly SS, the 'traditional' rules will not apply.

The supposed thing is that I would pay 'a fair percentage'. On my income, there IS no % I can pay and still exist. They literally HAVE no plan other than to continue to cut what Medicare pays for until I/we die.

[Griffin NoName]

Sorry to butt in, but this is hardly surprising stuff. We are after all witnessing the demise of another civilisation. Individual comment on atrocities is futile. Look at Zimbabwe. Health chiefs merely need to work out whether it is economically viable to keep an individual alive nowadays. Not a difficult calculation. But at present they still try to dress it up - like NICE in the UK, which is an utterly ridiculous farce. It cannot be long before even the window dressing is deemed too expensive.

I suggest a global petition to ? asking when ? will come clean and admit it is an international conspiracy to promote only economically viable people. After all, we are all paying for financiers to make profits - ie. giving our money away to them like idiots - so we probably deserve to die.

As taxpayers only - at present - can give their money away in this way, we need an international strike by workers. All workers should join the sick, disabled, etc who are unable to work, and declare equality. ETC.

<I am having a BAD day ! >

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

Making sense, Griff. And I really wish you weren't.