Senator McCain, stop lying about Senator Obama's Health Care Plan

Earlier today, Health Care for America Now released this statement:

Health Care for America Now (HCAN) - the unprecedented coalition of large labor groups, community-based organizations, women's groups, doctors, nurses, small businesses, think tanks, and leading netroots activists - released the following statement today in response to Senator McCain's repeated false claims that Senator Obama's health care plan will "force small businesses to cut jobs and reduce wages and force families into a government-run health care system where a bureaucrat stands between you and your doctor":

"Senator Obama's heath care plan offers the American people and American business a choice. His plan allows individuals to stay with the private insurance they have now, choose a new health care plan similar to the one Congress has, or opt into a new public plan so we are no longer left at the mercy of the private insurance industry. His plan includes lowering health care costs for small business and allowing employers to offer health insurance by paying for it as a percentage of their payroll rather than continue to feed into the current system where premiums are completely disconnected from what a business can afford.

Too many Americans already know the frustration of having a bureaucrat stand between them and their doctor because that is exactly how the unregulated private insurance market operates now. McCain's health care plan, which proposes taxing your health care benefits at work and eliminating what little regulation already exists by allowing people to purchase across state lines, will raise costs and lower consumer protections.

Health Care for America Now asks Senator McCain to level with the American people and stop lying about Obama's health care proposal." - Richard Kirsch, National Campaign Manager, Health Care for America Now

Via Chris Frates at The Crypt, here is the RNC's response:

"Special-interest groups like HCAN support Obama's plan to create new health-care bureaucracies and bigger government. But average patients and doctors don't want a big government-run system with more bureaucrats and burdensome taxes," said RNC spokesman Alex Conant.

"The facts are clear, he went on. "Obama's plan would hurt small businesses and force families into a government-run health care system where bureaucrats stand between patients and doctors. John McCain's health care plan will make it easier for more Americans to find and keep good health care insurance."

See that? The RNC just defended Senator McCain's lie about Senator Obama's health care plan by...repeating the lie!

The RNC is right about one thing - the facts are clear. Multiple news outlets have examined the differences between Obama and McCain's plans, and they've all had similar views.

Here's just a sample.

McClatchy:

Obama's proposed universal health-care plan embodies the long-held Democratic Party goal of covering the 47 million Americans who lack health insurance. Employers, insurers, individuals and the government all would have greater roles in assuring coverage through a number of proposals designed to close gaps in the system.

"It builds on the existing system and recognizes that we're not starting from scratch," said M. Gregg Bloche, health care adviser for Obama. "One can't impose sudden radical change on the system from the top down. There are real limitations to what can be accomplished centrally with respect to health care."

McCain's plan takes a different approach. It follows Republican orthodoxy of trying to make the private-insurance marketplace more affordable and competitive by radically altering the tax treatment of health-care benefits.

For years employers have been able to exclude the cost of health benefits from their employees' taxable incomes, but self-employed workers and those who buy private coverage don't have the same tax benefit. To level the playing field, McCain no longer would exempt employees' health benefits from income taxes. Instead, he'd provide refundable tax credits of $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families to help purchase private insurance.

New York Times:

Though Senator John McCain has promised to not raise taxes, his campaign acknowledged Wednesday that the health plan he outlined this week would have the effect of increasing tax payments for some workers, primarily those with high incomes and expensive health plans.

Time's Joe Klein:

Today's issue: health insurance. John McCain wants to tax your employer-provided health care benefits. He wants to replace those benefits with an insufficient tax credit--$2500 for individuals and $5000 for families (the average cost per family for health insurance is $12000).

There is a positive, progressive tax aspect to this: wealthier people should have to pay for health insurance themselves, without tax breaks from the federal government.

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.

The media has also called out John McCain's outright lies about Obama's health care plan:

Disputed characterizations are not uncommon on the trail. At a campaign stop this week in Missouri, Mr. McCain said that Mr. Obama's plan would "force small businesses to cut jobs and reduce wages and force families into a government-run health care system where a bureaucrat stands between you and your doctor."

Jonathan B. Oberlander, who teaches health policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said that Mr. Obama's plan would not force families into a government-run system. "I would say this is an inaccurate and false characterization of the Obama plan," he said. "I don't use those words lightly."

It seems everybody but Senator McCain and the RNC think McCain is lying about Obama's health care plan. Who are you going to believe?

(also posted at the NOW! blog)

Comments

[IndiePenDish]

From the NY columnist Bob Herbert: McCain's Radical Plan:

the McCain health plan would treat employer-paid health benefits as income that employees would have to pay taxes on.

"It means your employer is going to have to make an estimate on how much the employer is paying for health insurance on your behalf, and you are going to have to pay taxes on that money," said Sherry Glied, an economist who chairs the Department of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University"s Mailman School of Public Health.

Ms. Glied is one of the four scholars who have just completed an independent joint study of the plan. Their findings are being published on the Web site of the policy journal, Health Affairs.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/opinion/16herbert.html?bl&ex=1221796800&en=30e6b5e2e61b3bb9&ei=5087%0A

[watchdog2009]

McCain has no plan t fix the middle class economy. Even the former fed chief Allan Greenspan says that McCain tax cut plan to the rich 1% will bring more debt to the economy and will not do any good to bring any comfort to the suffering of the middle class. McCain can enjoy for himself federal funded healthcare but he opposes the same care for the rest of the underprivileged who has no health care at all.
McCain is no solution but the same failed eight years. Do not be get fooled by the sweet talk of the Republican Party. Every election cycle they bring the same spin that blindfolded the Americans and put us to the black hole of the same smears and nasty tricks. Now McCain is talking against the republicans and in some case he is ripping off his own party and putting them under neath his bus. But make no mistake this is just republican political spins to fool people and to show how maverick he is. But at the end he is voted with Bush 90% of the time.

[watchdog2009]

It is very troublesome to hear that McCain and its republicans are again trying to cheat on the voters by sending absentee ballots to them but with wrong returning address. The same way Bush stole the OHIO vote in 2004.Thousands of registered democrats are getting this conflicting ballot by the McCain party in most of the battle ground state. The McCain boosted by Karl Rove policies is sold to the demon and trying to steal the election by not talking about issues but him just using Palin as a triumph card to win the election.
McCain"s straight talk Maverick costume is being hijacked by the Republican Party who intentionally led our country to the wrong war to score some point and to make money. if he some how hijacked the election this year then we should be shameful because after George Bush failed domestic and economic policies that led us to 9 trillion debt.
McCain is now trying to convince us that just picking Palin will reform the Washington, bring the healthcare and fixing the ailing economy. McCain is surrounded by the same group who hijacked us for eight years. We should not forget that after the Iraq war, who got profited? It was Halliburton a close business partner of Cheney, Blackwater and so on by no bid contract. Shame to those who are still in dreams that a McCain ticket will bring the change but infact will bring the four more years of Bush again.

[mike42nola]

I, for one, do not want the government involved in running our health care system. Be it Republican or Democrat I would not trust them to run a snowball stand properly.
There should be a bigger push to get the federal government out of private business rather than have a longing to get them deeper into it.

[Merewen]

Do you honestly believe that privatize insurance is working?? The price gouging is ok with you?? That that most people have insurance that they can't afford to use is good with you?? I haven't been to the Doctor's at all this year because I'm still paying deductibles for my children. Does that make sense to you?? How can you, in good concious subject lower income and sick people to the crap that is privatized insurance?? It's time to face facts. THE FREE MARKERT DOES WORK FOR THE HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY!! Big Phara, Insurance Companies, and Hospitals are raping the American public!! It needs to stop!! I bust my behind for the American people and I shouldn't have to live without seeing the Doctor!!!

[arthur2008]

John McCain has shown beyond a doubt that he has nothing to offer our nation but lies.

[JNail]

By dismantling the employer based system, McCain's healthcare plan will raise taxes on everyone by exposing more income to SS taxes for both employers and employees - that is approx 13.7% alone....

Also the regulatory changes required for a national market while states own ins. regs is simply staggering

[wordvarc]

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McSame is lying. It's his best strategy. No one wants another w as president.

But McSame sometimes seems feeble and befuddled enough to get some sympathy from voters...

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