Daily News Updates - Health Insurance News

The Campaign Trail to Health, Pt.3 – The Bush/McCain spin.

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Earlier in the week the New York Times issued their assessment of bringing out, both, similarities and differences of the health insurance/care proposals promoted by McCain and Bush. The assessment was that McCain’s plan is really very similar to Bush’s 2007 for health insurance/care reform, which is a "market-oriented model" that didn’t go very far. Bumiller, of the New York Times reported that both Bush and McCain are driving out employer-based health insurance in favor of market-driven private health insurance.

A tax subsidy is offered to individuals as an incentive. This is where McCain’s proposal is a little more “progressive" than that offered by Bush. McCain has changed the offer to, as much as, $5,000 per family as they convert over to private health insurance coverage. The squeeze is that it is highly questionable if the $5,000 would be enough to cover the rising cost of private family health insurance facing a captive audience with little competition from alternatives.

Risk-sharing pools of employer-based plans almost always hold premium costs lower for people who need and exercise the benefits. Right now, this constitutes the lion’s share of competition for private health insurance. If all this competition should go away, premiums would almost certainly rise for the majority of American Families.

On the other hand, it is felt that $15,000 refund that Bush’s plan offered was specifically design for the rich because the median American family only earns about $46,000. Rarely can they to spend $15,000 just on health insurance. President and CEO of the Kaiser Family Foundation, Drew Altman assesses the over-all by saying "In general, they're much more similar than different." Both of their goals appear to be moving everything over into the “efficient” open-market scheme, rather than concentrating on expanding coverage.

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