By
Grace-Marie Turner
The American people will have a clear choice this
fall between two sharply contrasting visions for health
reform.
Republican John McCain wants to create a patient-centered
health care system that gives people more choices of more
affordable care and coverage, with new subsidies to help
people purchase portable health insurance.
In contrast, Democrat Barack Obama would expand government's
role in our health sector and impose new taxes on businesses
and limits on individuals, with government dictating
decisions about coverage.
We learned during the last major health reform debate in the Clinton era that Americans want control and
security. But they are losing both as the number of people
getting insurance through their jobs declines.
In an economy where four in ten workers change jobs every
year, Sen. McCain says we must modernize our health sector
to fit this mobile economy. He would give people more
options to get health insurance that they can keep with them
as they move from job to job, and he would provide new help
to 46 million Americans who are uninsured.
The crucial link is giving everyone the same tax break for
buying health insurance, whether they get their policies at
work or on their own.
John McCain would offer every family a refundable tax credit
worth $5,000 a year to help them purchase health insurance
($2,500 for individuals). Credits also would make the system
fairer, giving a single working mother who is getting no
help today real money to buy insurance. The credit is
refundable so people get the full amount even if they owe
less than that in taxes. Lower- and middle-income families
who are shut out of the system will benefit the most, but
virtually everyone who gets a tax break today for job-based
insurance would come out ahead as well.
John McCain also believes that people would be able to buy
more affordable insurance if they were not trapped by
expensive mandates and burdensome regulations in many states
that drive up costs and drive out competition. This new
national market for health insurance, coupled with the
portable tax credit, would open up opportunities for people
to buy policies across state lines and through new kind of
groups, such as professional organizations, labor unions, or
churches.
Insurers would have to compete for the business of tens of
millions of new customers by offering the best coverage at
the best price. Economists have estimated that 12 million
more people would obtain health insurance with this change
alone -- without the federal government spending a dime.
Finally, Sen. McCain wants to help people who have trouble
buying health insurance because of pre-existing conditions.
He would create a Guaranteed Access Plan that would provide
new incentives and funding to the states for public-private
partnerships that would give people new options of
affordable coverage. Whether people have trouble getting
health insurance because of their health status or income
level, or both, they would receive additional help.
In contrast, the reform plan offered by Sen. Obama is a grab
bag of failed policies from the past that have been proven
to drive up costs and deny people choice. He would require
employers to provide coverage or pay a new tax -- a
jobs-killing combination. He would let people wait until
they are sick to buy health insurance, driving up prices for
everyone. He would expand taxpayer-funded programs like
Medicaid and the State Children's
Health Insurance Program. He would require everyone buying
coverage in his new National Health Insurance Exchange to
have benefits dictated by government. And he would create a
major new government insurance program that would quickly
drive private plans out of the market.
The bottom line is choice and control. The American people
will have a clear choice this fall.
*******
Grace-Marie Turner is a health policy expert who advises the
McCain campaign.
