McCain: Cut Medicare
Paul Krugman doesn’t like John McCain’s health care plans very much:
Conservative Republicans still hate Medicare, and would kill it if they could — in fact, they tried to gut it during the Clinton years (that’s what the 1995 shutdown of the government was all about). But so far they haven’t been able to pull that off.
So John McCain wants to destroy the health insurance of nonelderly Americans instead.
It seems his deadline must have been too early to catch the latest twist from the McCain campaign. Faced with the accusation that swapping the tax deductible status of employer-provided health care for a $2,500 per person ($5,000 per family) CPI-indexed tax credit would constitute a net tax increase on the middle class, McCain’s people proclaimed that employer-provided plans would be subject to income tax, but not to payroll tax. No more net tax increase. But where’s the money going to come from? Well, it looks like $1.3 trillion over ten years in Medicare cuts is the answer. Igor Volsky observes that this is hardly the first time McCain has taken a stand against Medicare beneficiaries. One might have thought, as Krugman evidently did, that McCain would be too averse to the political risks to take up the mantle of Medicare slasher amidst a presidential campaign, but evidently he was just hoping that amidst his campaign’s oft-shifting story about the details of his health care plans nobody would notice.
31 Responses to “McCain: Cut Medicare”
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October 6th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
I think this is going to turn out to be another of those public statements by prominent McCain-ites that somehow doesn’t count as an official policy, because it was in a pizza parlor, or it was an unfair question, or because Holtz-Eakin had his fingers crossed, or something.
That’s also true for anything vaguely coherent and sensible that Palin says - e.g. full civil rights for same-sex couples, hitting terrorists in Pakistan.
October 6th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
McPalin would gut anything remotely related to socialism and then privatize it and give to his Reich wing crony`s to bleed us dry.Johnny Mcwars is unamerican just like the rest of his cronies from the Reich.He has lost all of his integrity and honesty to win this election.It`s all about the haves and the have nots and we need to take back America from these neoliberal neocon Reich wingers.
October 6th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
So riddle me this: what kind of map does McCain think he can draw with neither Michigan NOR Florida? (And failing to disavow this statement is as good as pulling out of Florida.)
Trick question, of course–no one in the McCain campaign is interested in drawing maps or counting votes anymore. The true-believer crusaders don’t trust math in the first place, and anyone with a brain is edging towards the exit door, thinking “Romney? Or Maybe Huck?”
October 6th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
No more net tax increase, perhaps, although it’d be nice to see when someone as smart as Krugman has time to lay out the numbers for us. But still bound to be a redistribution, with winners and losers. And I’m betting it’s still pretty much the losers Krugman already spotted, people who lose employer benefits, people not healthy enough, or just people who still can’t afford health coverage, even if it means paying only $8G instead of $13G. And the big winners? People who could easily afford health coverage but now get a tax break anyhow. Notice a pattern here as to who benefits, as with vouchers or, goodness, the Bush tax cuts?
October 6th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Isn’t saying that you’ll cut benefits for the elderly the equivalent of announcing that you’re quitting the race?
October 6th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
You gotta hand it to McCain — he’s managed to craft a health insurance policy that (1) threatens people’s existing, employer-based coverage; (2) threatens Medicare; and (3) still doesn’t expand access to actual health care!
Also, Florida isn’t the only place he’d be punting with this policy. Pennsylvania is old, old, old. If he loses the senior vote there, he’s not winning the Keystone State, either.
October 6th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Why does John McCain hate old people?
October 6th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Not only is he going after medicare, but his plan to dump people off employer-based insurance by eliminating the employer tax deduction will mean that people with pre-existing conditions will pay a fortune or not even get insurance.
Sara Palin is the PERFECT example. She has a Down Syndrome baby. Down Syndrome children are are at high risk for a host of medical problems including congenital heart disease hearing deficits, thyroid disorders, Alzheimer’s disease, leukemia, immune deficiencies, and epilepsy.
I would be extremely curious private insurance would cost a family of 5 with a Down Syndrome baby. My guess is that the price would be ASTRONOMICAL if one could even find a carrier. McCain’s own plan would have the intent of forcing Palin off her employer-provided State of Alaska insurance and force her to fend for herself in the private insurance market.
I would dearly dearly love for someone to calculate what her insurance would cost from Blue Cross or some other provider if bought as an individual. And then ask her if her $5000 tax credit will cover the cost. It will come up tens of thousands short. The Palins would be totally screwed and would be without insurance under McCain’s plan.
October 6th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Re: Not only is he going after medicare, but his plan to dump people off employer-based insurance by eliminating the employer tax deduction will mean that people with pre-existing conditions will pay a fortune or not even get insurance.
McCain’s plan would the quickest way to build support for single payor “socialzed medicine”. Healthcare providers which reams of unpaid bills, sick people and their friends and relatives no matter what their ideology, overwhelmed bankruptcy courts, even the health insurers themselves (provided they got to administer the plan) since they would lose a lot of business– everyone would be clamoring for that sort of change.
Oh, and the GOP would have about as much chance of winning elections again as the Know Nothing Party.
The lesson of 1994 was If you are going to implement change to the healthcare system, make sure you don’t forcibly disturb people’s existing arrangements. Even Bush was smart enough not to go there.
October 6th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Basically, John McCain is doing so poorly in the polls that he is willing to do something which on the face of it is an incredibly stupid political decision on the off-chance that it will increase his lead somewhere, somehow. It’s the same reason that he’s bringing up Ayers while people are worried about the economy. It’s desperation, since the Obama lead is beginning to look more or less insurmountable.
October 7th, 2008 at 12:19 am
What about people who don’t get dumped from their employer based coverage?We’re getting a big tax increase with nothing in return, because the credit is only for people who buy their own insurance.
October 7th, 2008 at 5:39 am
Why is it so scandalous for American taxpayers to spend money on ourselves? National insurance. What is so damned awful of having a large insurance pool, and a medical system that is based on health and not profit? Public transportation. What is so offensive about spending money efficiently for the greater common good?
October 7th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Note the follwoing statement by McCain, quoted by Krugman:
“Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation” [emphasis added].
Beyond satire . . .
October 8th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Let’s face it-McCain is done! He might as well drop out of the race now. If he thinks that the INFORMED American public will accept his lame and disastrous policies, he is insane!
October 31st, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Re: But Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Sen. McCain’s senior policy adviser, said Sunday that the campaign has always planned to fund the tax credits, in part, with savings from Medicare and Medicaid.
How did we construe savings to be cuts? Savings could be in the form of Medicare Reform, e.g. eliminate fraud - lets face it folks, this is a biggie and alot of money wasted there.
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