Daily News Updates - Health Insurance News

Ironic Plight of the Uninsured, Pt.2 -- McCain's "best plan"

Continued from previous article, Mr. Forseth challenges us to contrast private health insurance plans with employee health insurance plans. Preserving his wording may be helpful: “How does their coverage compare to yours? How high is their deductible? $2,000, $5,000 or $10,000? How high is their premium? Do they even qualify on their own, without being in an employee pool? Is paying $300-$900 per month in premiums with a $10,000 deductible even coverage?” 

Kjersten reflects on Mr. McCain’s presumption that “creating more competition and less regulation within the individual market would lower costs and get more people covered.” As the article alludes, any American who understands capitalism, should realize that the rules of capitalism without regulation dictate that private health insurance companies must “cherry-pick by charging unaffordable premiums or even denying coverage to people who have any sort of pre-existing condition.” Economist Jonathon Gruber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology estimates that, if their employer stopped providing health coverage, 1.2 million people couldn't afford to purchase it themselves. That many more Americans would become uninsured. “Not even John McCain could be covered on the individual market..”

So now, McCain's health care plan would “transfer the burden of unaffordable health care costs from the employer to working families”.  As it is, the cost of health insurance is “already rising at more than four times the rate of wages in this country”, as reported by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Mr. Forseth closes by saying, “Colorado for Health Care and its 29,000 Health Care Voters want a presidential candidate who will bring quality, affordable health care to everyone in this country. Then ‘Cover the Uninsured Week’ would be unnecessary.”