Friday, May 2, 2008

A Question for McCain on His Health Care Plan

As I explained in this earlier post, the basic objective of the McCain health care plan is to kill the current employer-sponsored health care system. It would do that by forcing workers to pay taxes on employer-sponsored health insurance, with the intent of making such plans unattractive to workers, and thereby ultimately dissuading employers from providing such plans. But if he were elected, McCain wouldn't have to wait for this chain of incentives to kick in--he himself would head up the largest provider of employer-sponsored care in the country: the federal government. Would he end health insurance coverage for federal workers? Maybe some enterprising reporter should ask him.

Follow-up questions:
If the answer is "no," how do you justify the huge tax increase on those workers? ($2400 for a married couple filing jointly with income $63K-128K, as per calculations in the earlier post.)

If the answer is "yes," how are federal workers with pre-existing conditions going to be able to find care?

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