I Was Wrong about McCain's Health Plan
Posted by Chris Martin at 4/29/2008 6:55 PM 
Categories: Health policy, presidential election, Health Insurance
Categories: Health policy, presidential election, Health Insurance
A little more than a month ago Wonks Anonymous posted an analysis of John McCain's health plan based on an article in the New York Times. In this analysis I estimated that the plan would result in a bit more than $100 billion per year in additional tax revenue. It seems that my analysis was not visionary enough.
Douglas Holtz-Eakins, McCain's chief economic advisor, estimates that the plan will "save" the Federal Government at least $3.6 trillion over its first decade — save here meaning that the government will collect an additional $3.6 trillion in taxes. That comes to about $360 billion per year. I believe that this amount comes close to Joseph Stiglitz's estimate for the cost of the ongoing wars. My estimate is off by more than 300%.
Now we know how we will pay for the gas tax holiday.
And the rhetoric continues. The last paragraph of this NYT article summarises one of the major problems with our health care policy makers, specifically the remaining three presidential candidates. Not one can extricate himself/herself from the hold that the insurance companies have on them. One party wants to regulate the insurance companies and one party wants to deregulate the insurance companies says the health policy and politics expert from UNC, Chapel Hill. But all the candidates want to keep the health insurance industry in play. Why?
Why is the continued presence of the health insurance industry necessary for the transformation of our health care system? What does this industry add other than a complex maze of dollar movement designed to fill their own coffers?
This NYT article and the post on Wonks Anonymous lead us to a fundamental American ethos, which lies at the core of our health care miseries: that health care is a business; that health care is a business tool designed to support dollar earnings of businesses operating within an health care economic marketplace. Thus policy makers put forth business dollar-driven health policy.
There is an alternative view, which I believe could be the deciding factor in the presidential election in November 2008. If one of the candidates could propose healthcare-driven health policy, in which clear and equal access to vital, comprehensive health care for everyone living in America was the bottom line and in which health care businesses exist as a tool to achieve that goal, I believe he/she would win the election. Why? Because I hope that people in America can understand when someone is really looking out for their best interests as opposed to supporting corporate healthcare business greed. Unfortunately, all of the remaining three presidential candidates' plans are nothing more than convoluted tweakings of our dysfunctional system. However, the rhetoric of the democrats is far more powerful than the rhetoric of the republican. Isn't it a shame that rhetoric substitutes for well conceived plans to assure clear and equal access to vital, comprehensive health care for everyone living in America?
R. Garth Kirkwood MD
http://www.equalhealthcareforall.com
doctork@equalhealthcareforall.com
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