McCain Secretly Plans New Tax on Middle Class

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

McCain intends to tax workers for the value of health insurance that they receive from their employers.

Really.

...

This comes from the Kaiser Foundation evaluation of the McCain and Barack Obama health plans. It says McCain would "reform the tax code to eliminate the exclusion of the value of health insurance plans offered by employers from workers' taxable income."

The value of the typical plan provided by an employer to a family is $12,106, of which the employer pays $8,824, and the worker pays the remaining $3,282. The median household income is $44,389, which places most American families in the 15 percent income tax bracket.

McCain wants to add the employer’s cost — an additional $8,824 — to that middle class family’s income, then tax it. The hit to the average family is 15 percent of the McCain-added income — $1,323 more in income taxes.

This new tax would affect the 158 million Americans who are insured through their employer.

Right now you should be ... demanding to know why you haven’t heard about this before. That is because the media keeps focusing on McCain’s proposed health care tax credits — $5,000 for families and $2,500 for individuals.

McCain certainly wants the attention to stay on those credits. It sounds so much better to be giving families tax credits than tax increases. But what you need to know about those tax credits is that they don’t go to you – they’re to be sent to the insurance companies. You never get actual money in your pocket. McCain says it right on his web site: "the money would be sent directly to the insurance provider."

So if you choose to remain with your employer-based insurance, there’s no guarantee that you’ll ever see any benefit from that $5,000 payment. In addition, giving young healthy workers $2,500 to buy insurance on their own, where it won’t be taxed, will encourage them to leave employer-based plans, quickly raising the costs for everyone remaining and thus eliminating benefits of the tax credits. Finally, the tax credits rise only at the rate of inflation, not the vastly faster rate of medical costs, so, again, their value will quickly erode, according to several studies, including one released last week by health economists from Columbia, Harvard, Purdue and Michigan and published in the journal "Health Affairs."

...

John McCain wants to kill employer-provided health insurance. He wants every American to go out on his or her own and try to buy insurance. He says that on his site if you read between the doubletalk. He says, for example, "The key to health care reform is to restore control to the patients themselves.. . .Health care. . . should not be limited by where you work."

...

Many ... companies would dump their plans as soon as the federal government offered tax credits to individuals who bought their own. Corporations would disingenuously justify this abandonment the same way McCain does — by saying workers would get the advantage of carrying their individual plans from job to job as they move around the country.

They won’t mention the cost, however. To buy plans comparable to what workers now receive from employers, families are going to have to shell out a lot more money from their own pockets.

The math is simple. To buy the $12,106 plan with the $5,000 family tax credit, a worker is going to have to cough up an additional $3,824. (That is the $8,824 the employer previously paid toward the plan minus the $5,000 credit.)

That is, assuming, of course, that you can get coverage. Insurance companies are notorious for rejecting anyone with pre-existing conditions, including acne, being overweight and diabetes.

...

McCain could resolve the exclusion problem by requiring insurance companies to accept people with pre-existing conditions. But he doesn't. Instead, he suggests setting up a system in which states would become responsible making sure those people get insurance. He says he won’t shift the costs to the states, but what’s the chance of that? He’s establishing a pool of all of those rejected by insurance companies – thus those with the highest risk. And he’s telling the states to deal with the problem that creates.

Meanwhile, insurance companies would be left to profit big time by providing insurance for the young, the healthy and everyone who doesn’t have anything at all wrong with them. What a deal!

http://blog.thehill.com/2008/09/16/mccain-...n-middle-class/

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

McSame's health care proposal is the worst one could come up with. It is geared towards the total destruction of whatever access a slight majority of Americans still enjoy today. And yes, it'll cost the average Joe dearly.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

It is geared towards the total destruction of whatever access a slight majority of Americans still enjoy today.

[AlHayatZween 2]

It's horrendous, and dangerous.

What is happening to our country?

The funny thing is that $2,500 for an individual is a drop in the bucket. i remember when i was uninsured and shopping for insurance, the most basic, bull-####### plan i could find for a woman in her thirties in the tri-state area was $300 a month. That was the most basic... That's still $3,600 a year for just the minimal... that didn't cover outrageously inflated lab fees, etc...

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

It's horrendous, and dangerous.

What is happening to our country?

The funny thing is that $2,500 for an individual is a drop in the bucket. i remember when i was uninsured and shopping for insurance, the most basic, bull-####### plan i could find for a woman in her thirties in the tri-state area was $300 a month. That was the most basic... That's still $3,600 a year for just the minimal... that didn't cover outrageously inflated lab fees, etc...

McCain's "plan" has just one purpose - to make C-level executives in insurance companies even wealthier.

The rest of us can suck on his balls for all he cares.

Here's how he thinks of health insurance - he wants to do to health insurance what we've already done to banking!

See: http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=152205

[kaydee457 13]

It's horrendous, and dangerous.

What is happening to our country?

The funny thing is that $2,500 for an individual is a drop in the bucket. i remember when i was uninsured and shopping for insurance, the most basic, bull-####### plan i could find for a woman in her thirties in the tri-state area was $300 a month. That was the most basic... That's still $3,600 a year for just the minimal... that didn't cover outrageously inflated lab fees, etc...

McCain's "plan" has just one purpose - to make C-level executives in insurance companies even wealthier.

The rest of us can suck on his balls for all he cares.

Here's how he thinks of health insurance - he wants to do to health insurance what we've already done to banking!

See: http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=152205

Well, I don't know how "secret" this is for I've known about it for a long time....Finally, we agree on something. This proposal is definitley a worry for me......

I will say however that given a democratically controlled congress I doubt that this would ever be passed......Unions will kill it. However, in Obama's case, if elected he has an obvious advantage to get passage of his plan.....

At this time my HC, for my wife and I costs my company about 18k. My co-pay is I think around 4k. That's 22k minus his 5k, 17k increase in income.......

That's going to hurt for sure as I'm already in the 33% bracket.....In retirement I will have to kick in about 1800/year co-pay, less than active employees.

In retirement that would add 18k plus 2k, 20k minus 5k.....15k increase in taxable income level and by percentage given my lower retirement income a much greater burden.....

If there's any single issue that has me teetering on declaring a "deal breaker" it's this issue.

Problem is, I see Obama's plan as an open door to end employee HC and replace it with gov't supplied HC. I can see major corps simply dropping their coverage telling their employees to seek out UHC....

Either way, if you're middle class and have employer HC you're under threat by both candidates. You're going to give part of your earned benefit to those that have none! Isn't that socialism?

It's a matter of which promotes the lesser of the two evils.

[HAL 9000 96]

What would be cheaper for the company, K? Is that really socialism or capitalism as usual?

[Peikko 1,575]

This is such an important issue and one that should not be fought over on ideological lines. I really can't see why voters don't demand a solution that is meaningful accross the board. It's possible to identify the problem and various workable solutions. All this tinkering with something that doesn't work to begin with is literally killing thousands of Americans.

I realize that some people want to demand accountability from everyone but the reality is that some people, due to their circumstances, no matter how they were arrived at, are not going to pay their 'fair share' into the insurance pool, irrespective if what scheme is adopted and some people are going to have to pay 'more than their fair share' unless the consensus really is that health care should be provided strictly on one's ability to pay and if you can't pay you don't even get emergency care.

[Peikko 1,575]

Even then, I would imagine that those with a social conscience will find a way to pay for it, with some kind of charitable foundation so again, those who can't afford to pay will get supported by those who can afford to and feel that it is important. However, in my opinion that really isn't the most efficient way to subsidize those who are less fortunate, whether it's their fault or not. Assigning blame to something like health care is just one of those things I don't think is necessary or useful in any way.

[Dan J 277]

I don't quite understand what the goal is for McCain's plan. Make up for the huge deficits that will be created when when he puts his tax cut plan in place?

It will do nothing to improve care, or make it more available. It may encourage some to not choose employer provided health plans because of the extra tax burden.

As it is, we have an imbalance. We have an insurance pool that not every pays into and we have a provider pool that anyone can use. You can get free health care by not having insurance, running up medical bills, and then declaring bankruptcy. While it might be free for you, the cost is still paid by the insurance pool.

The way forward is either requiring everyone to contribute what they can to the insurance pool. Or requiring that providers only provide care to those who can pay. Which would also mean the end of socialized emergency care.