McCain is going to launch smear attacks on Obama's character and integrity
Always attack the enemy on your own weaknesses

I'm just amazed that McCain would propose something like this and not be aware of the political third rail he's touching. I work with a lot of traditionally GOP voters who are just FREAKING when they hear about this. This would be like taking away the mortgage deduction or cutting SS benefits.

Which strategy will work better? This is a nation that in successive generations flocked to Peyton Place, Dallas and Desperate Housewives for the vicarious thrills found in gossip, backstabbing and character assassination. Trashy sensationalism trumps intellectual pragmatism with this electorate. If Obama squeaks by it'll be solely because of Republican fatigue, not through an appeal to their better selves.

The smear attacks on Obama will win hands down. Why? Because for every ad the McCain campaign pays for, they have an entire right-wing media machine in talk radio the myriad wingnut welfare-supported print and web outlets to amplify it well beyond the ad buy. These smears are always a concerted, coordinated attacks from all sides; it's the reason that RNC talking points du jour come out of nowhere and suddenly seem everywhere. There is simply nothing comparable to this on the left, or even the center. Add to this the play that the most egregious of attacks will get in the mainstream media, over and over.

In terms of marketing efficacy, I think this will always beat any Dem ad campaign. Whether it will win McCain the election is another story, but this crap will keep it close—it certainly worked for the worst president in our history.

There's one good thing about McCain's plan: it's so ludicrous that it'll never make it through Congress. Just like SS privatization.

I don't think the smears are going to work this time. McCain looks like a desperate Johnny Drama these days.

Obama, meanwhile, appears to have saved his best stuff for the last month of the campaign. One of these candidates is not like the other, one of them just isn't more of the same.

I think one of the main things that would come out of McCain's plan would be insurance companies offering a series of $5000 plans. They wouldn't cover much, but as people file for more and more bankruptcies, they would bring us one step closer to the Zimbabwe-like economy Republicans admire so much.

Somebody clarify this for me - So the health insurance benefits I receive from my employer will be taxed as income now - and if I lose my benefits, I will have a $5000 tax credit to help me buy my own policy.

But don't I have to actually spend the money first before I can claim a tax credit?

So if I buy a policy with $12,000 annually in premiums, I have to go through the entire tax year paying the full cost and then claim the $5000 credit when I file - right?

Of course, you don't get the credit if you don't spend the money on premiums, so if you can afford to get into the policy in the first place, you're pretty much screwed.

Somebody tell me if I'm wrong about thinking that's how it would work.

g (11:56). No they would work exactly the same way a store coupon works. When you sign up for the insurance, the insurance company would file for the credit (rebate). You would never see it.

Sorry, I meant to type "If you can't afford to get into the policy in the first place you're pretty much screwed."

This report from the National Women's Law Center "Nowhere to Turn" on the discrimination women face in the private health insurance market deserves a heck of lot more attention from everyone including the obama campaign.

http://action.nwlc.org/site/PageServer?pagename=nowheretoturn&JServSessionIdr001=crvvmt0u51.app1b

"decentralize health insurance"

Using the law of large numbers, I can tell you that a health plan the covers the LA region reaches the minimum variance of risk. This is not about spreading risk, this is about subsidizing health care.

Why doesn't Obama just say that? I know the guy never took Algebra-2, but he must realize that many of us have!

Somebody please look at the numbers on this. This is a complete misstatement of the McCain proposal. Look at the numbers. People would save money and the insurance would be available to more people.

Here's a slogan for the Obama campaign about this:

"What's 5 minus 12?"

So we'll have a choice between (A) distant associations with a Sixties' radical, a preacher who is sometimes over the top, and one sleazy businessman, versus (B) abandoning a wife, getting a marriage license before the old marriage is dissolved, having a staff full of lobbyists, a even closer association with an even sleazier businessman from Arizona (who has actually been convicted), cozying up to a bunch of really scary and intolerant preachers (and ditto for the running mate), and a bunch of unsettling if unproven rumors about his military career. I'll take A (although the average voter may differ).

People would save money and the insurance would be available to more people.

You've never tried to get private insurance with pre-existing conditions, have you? That $5,000 won't get you more than catastrophic coverage on the open market, especially since McCain's plan still allows insurance companies to charge whatever they want and cherry-pick the healthiest patients.

Look at the numbers. People would save money and the insurance would be available to more people.

I have looked at the numbers and you're wrong. The claims that McCain's campaign are making about this are wildly out of left field and depend on the insurance companies continuing to take people who are at risk at the same rate that they do now.

In an individual market (as opposed to a group market) there is every incentive for insurance companies to take only healthy people and jack the prices up on people who are unhealthy to the point where they can't afford to pay anymore. The only people who would see savings in a McCain plan are people who already never go to see a doctor (mostly men between the ages of 18 and 30) and even they won't see any savings because of how the tax credit is structured.

There are plans very similar to McCain's that might - MIGHT - save money in the long run. But they include mandates that insurance companies cover everyone at a decent rate. McCain's plan doesn't do that - he lets the insurance companies cherry pick who they're going to cover. And that cherry picking means that everyone loses.

McCain has said this will spur competition.
What happens if you use your credit to buy insurance, then switch
insurance companies?
Will the insurance company refund part of the credit?

Give McCain some credit. His claim that he intended to do for Health care what his deregulation schemes had done for banking is a pretty good bet.

McCain has offered the most realistic path to single payer health care in US history.

And we claim he isn't a true progressive.

McCain's healthcare plan does have one great advantage - it neatly fits with conservative dogma about free markets, reducing health care costs, and individual responsibility. Never mind that this approach doesn't seem to improve the system for anyone; it's ideologically correct, and that's what matters for his campaign.

So we'll have a choice between (A) distant associations ...

What does this have to do with the post? Who the fuck cares about associations? The McCains keep trying to make this a point; why even dignify it with a response? One of the candidates is proposing to tax employer-provided health insurance as income! That's fucking insane!! That's the issue, and everything else is a distraction. Don't take the bait.

Good point economaniac.

We also need to point out to everybody that doctors no longer run the health care system. It's being run by the same geniuses that just took down Wall St. So about that ridiculous claim that "the government" will be between you and your health care? Given that the conservatives had to "bail out" Wall St after they made a complete deregulated mess of things, maybe it's time we "bailed out" health care too before that becomes even a bigger f&*ked up mess.

Somebody please look at the numbers on this. This is a complete misstatement of the McCain proposal. Look at the numbers. People would save money and the insurance would be available to more people.

Posted by: bob french

Here are "the numbers": average cost for health coverage for a family of four, per year, is $12,000.

Take that same family of four and apply the McCain "health care" plan. Mom and dad, filing jointly, qualify for the $5,000 "credit", which isn't actually a "credit" against anything, since it goes directly to the insurer as a subsidy. If mom and/or dad currently are able to cover the family's health insurance through employer-provided plans, then the credit doesn't apply, but they are liable for taxes on up to an additional $12,000 per year (probably more like $6,000, since I don't think any employers these days pick up the full tab for insurance coverage). So in this scenario, mom and dad are on the hook for at least another $1,000 per year in income taxes.

Mom and dad's employers are on the hook for additional bookkeeping, accounting, and tax withholding under the McCain plan. Maybe their employers will decide that it's the straw that breaks the camel's back, and they can no longer afford the costs associated with providing group health coverage for their employers. So now, mom and dad have to go shopping for health coverage on their own, and make up the other $7,000 they'll need for coverage out of their own pockets. Because, you see, nothing in the McCain "plan" requires mom and dad's employers to make up for taking away the insurance with a salary raise - so most employers won't do it.

Now, suppose mom is a breast cancer survivor. Or dad has had a heart attack. Or one of the kids is diabetic, or born with cystic fibrosis. Mom and dad quickly discover that not only will they not be able to afford an individual family policy, but also that NO ONE WILL COVER THEM.

That's the biggest flaw of all. The McCain "plan" assumes that insurers will cover all comers at the right price. But that's simply not true. I know. I work with a bunch of folks who all applied for individual plans at the same time. Out of seven of us, I was the only one accepted. Because I don't go to the doctor and they had no basis for turning me down. Every other person who applied with me had a medical history; most of it was fairly benign and what you would expect anyone having reached their 40s to have in their medical past. But because they had a medical past, every single one of them were turned down. None of them can get insurance of any type except under a group policy.

So I predict that the McCain "plan" would actually result in MANY MORE than 20 million additional uninsured; for everyone else, it would result in higher cost for insurance.

This "plan" of McCain's is designed to do nothing more than help insurance companies offload risk and make more money from the remaining people they deign to cover.

You couldn't be more wrong if you tried.

The greatest irony is, that with his history of melanoma, John McCain couldn't get health insurance under John McCain's own plan.

No one will care about this, but I wish that people would stop calling this a debate about "health care."

It is not a debate about health care.

It is a debate about health insurance.

Neither Obama's proposal nor McCain's proposal has anything to do with health care. They have to do with how health care will be paid for, and who will pay for it.

Moreover, what is called "health care" in this country is mostly not "health care", it is "medical services", which is almost entirely "disease and injury treatment", rather than the "care" of, or cultivation of, "health".

There are important issues about health care that could and should be debated, starting with figuring out how to reduce the enormously costly epidemic of entirely preventable disease -- including the leading killers, cancer, heart disease and stroke -- by promoting healthy lifestyle choices (e.g. nonsmoking, exercise, diet).

But this debate has nothing to do with that. This debate is about who pays for medical service. It's a debate about insurance, not about health care.

Jennifer's complaint:

"This "plan" of McCain's is designed to do nothing more than help insurance companies offload risk and make more money from the remaining people they deign to cover."

Those exact words were used by Obama in his support for government insurance of the financial industry. Precisely the same words, for precisely the same reason. AIG, which has received $80 billion from the taxpayer did just that, off load risk as AIG is an insurance company! Do you feel healthier now that the feds guarantee AIG's risk?

So, Jennifer, what do you prefer? Obama shifting risk from financial to health care, or McCain getting out of the risk business?

McCain's plan is one with huge risks and probable negative rewards. Let's be mavericks and do it.

So, Jennifer, what do you prefer? Obama shifting risk from financial to health care, or McCain getting out of the risk business?

Posted by: MattYoung

Well well well, isn't that a nice, though unintelligible, attempt at deflection.

Instead of posting about false dichotomies, Matt, why don't you explain how McCain's "plan" is good news for all of us?

What it boils down to is Obama is building on a Healthcare-through-work system that 160 million workers use and tries to improve on it. White septuagenarian John McCain, conversely, is trying to tear down that system that 160 million use and instill the social conservative "ownership" BS rhetoric because all big Government entitlement programs, regardless of how vital they are to protecting society, must be killed.

Am I Reading This Right??

If I receive $250,000 in hospital/Doctor Care (Health Benefits?) ... do I get jacked into a higher tax bracket then billed by the IRS for income tax due on the $250,000 as well as my regular income??

Obama is unveiling his new assault at a rally in Newport News, Va.,[...] -- Politico, via Steve Benen

Every time I think this guy couldn't be more brilliant, he proves me wrong with another stroke of genius. It's not just *that* he is mounting a frontal attack on the healthcare insurance; it's *where* he is doing this.

Virginia has absolutely *brutal* requirements before you can qualify for Medicare, so that an awful lot of people don't make the cut. The people I see at the Free Clinic are families with both parents working (low paying jobs), and still unable to buy health insurance. We take in people with twice, sometimes three times, the poverty level (the latter are supposed to give us some minimal co-payment). Some of them *used to* have health insurance but, with the costs rising rapidly, had to drop it.

So, the issue of health insurance is of *vital* importance throughout Virginia, and the issue will be extremely helpful to Obama, especially once people wrap their minds around the idea of having their employer provided insurance taxed as income.

But, additionally, he's doing it in Newport News... That whole area -- Newport News, Norfolk, VA Beach -- is *extremely* important. It is densely populated (unlike my own redneck of woods in the south-western VA) but, unlike the densely populated areas around DC, the population is not the high-powered, highly educated, tech and lawyerly folk. It's, mostly, military. They tend to trend to the right at all times; with a "war hero" as an option, they'll be that much harder to persuade.

Yet, because of the density, they also tend to pull the rest of the state. Generally, as goes that part of the state, so goes the state. If Obama can swing that area, he's got Virginia cemented to him.

So, to speak on the subject of health insurance in
that particular area is truly *brilliant*.

GOBAMA!

Awesomely brutal article on McCain's life, career and record by Tim Dickinson
in 10/16 Rolling Stone Magazine,
entitled "Make-Believe Maverick."
It eviscerates him. As a top Navy lobbyist, McCain ignored his superiors--and won a $2 billion
pork project. He wrote "thanks to my POW experience, I had...a good story to tell."
Was known for hitting the dog track, picking up models--and crashing planes. Cindy's drug addiction became public only because McCain tried to cover it up. Numerous stories of his hotheaded temper...and the extensive article
has great quotes from Richard Clarke, i.e., "we are at risk because of the mistaken judgment of people like John McCain."
Sorts out his double-talk express flip-flops on so many issues.
This must be the McCain issue--Matt Tabbi also excoriates McCain in "The Return of Rove," where Matt so eloquently says election day is now a referendum on democracy itself. The bad and the scary.
Hope Obama picks this issue up soon

>Am I Reading This Right?? olo (2:55)

No. But if your employer provides health insurance worth $12,000, you would pay income tax on that (or I presume that less the $5000 credit). Insurance payouts/benefits would not be taxable, though.

Danp - My reading is that if your employer provides health insurance (in part or in whole) then the $5000 "credit" doesn't enter into it at all. You'll be taxed on the part of the premium that the employer pays. So if your coverage costs $12,000 per year and the employer pays 50% of the cost, you'll be taxed on the $6,000 value of the employer's contribution to your health insurance coverage.

Exlibra: Yes, good points about VA. My state ("commonwealth" FWIW) is backward also on voting rights for felons and lots of things, but votes are at least counted fairly (AFAIK from dealing with it.) VA is also very important as a swing state on the verge of perhaps going blue this time for President. Indeed, this very area of SE VA is important since it is more equally balanced in votes (due in large part to rough black-white parity, but also even the white vote has many educated Democrat types, union members, etc.) I have been working for the Obama etc. campaigns in Newport News and it was great to see him there today.

He made a detailed explanation of his health care ideas and razzed on McCain's plans. He said you could keep your old provider and your favorite doctor etc. but new rules and price controls would be imposed. Notably: No exclusion from pre-existing conditions. Obama made the very good point that society as a whole actually wastes more money picking up the tab for emergency room visits by the uninsured, than it would spend on proper health care to begin with. (An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, say it everywhere.)

I went with my 81-y.o. mother. We got to see him line of sight but far away. It was her first time, my second (HS in Southside VA around 2004.) Good zingers about McCain, basically that he just doesn't get it. Obama said McCain would tax health care benefit as income, etc. No mention of Palin. I can hear and see why he has such an impact. Downtown mostly black, crowd about 10% white.

I noticed, our side much more creative, with many varieties of shirt and button etc. designs - contrast with McCain-Palin. Also, funny incident: old balding white-haired white guy looking out window while I walked with some crowd to area. So I said, clearly joking: "Hello John McCain, we know you're spying on us. But we've got the election wrapped and you're gonna lose" or somesuch. Many in crowd snickered, it was fun.

BTW: After rally my girlfriend saw big "hot pink" limo some miles away from the event, driving away (to the NW.) She said, two black kids in back peering out crack in window. I don't think BHO would ride a pink limo, so GF theory is some famous supporters or etc. Any clue?

First, it is not a dichotomy, it is exactly the same problem, precisely, summarized in clarity with the same words by the candidate Obama. Obama bailed out an insurance company with $80 billion, then went on to prove insurance for the financials with $700 billion, all of it insurance.

' McCain's "plan" is good news for all of us? "

What would make McCain's plan good for us is that we have no more subsidies left because Obama spent them all, so we have no choice but to give up some subsidies, and the major one to give up is health care subsidies. If Obama focuses on protecting financials, rather than health, then McCain's plan is the best way to decrease support for health care as Obama seems to be implying.

The point is, tell me where Obama wants to put his subsidies. Once I know, then I will hire a neocon to design out way out of the other subsidies.

You have no choice, you have limited resources, and Obama is spending those resources even before you elect him.

MattYoung - could you try to explain your thoughts logically? I mean, this bullshit about "giving up subsidies". What are you attempting to say, because it's not at all clear. Are you suggesting that currently there is a federal subsidy to employers for providing partial health insurance benefits? There isn't, other than it being an expense to the business that can be written off as are all other expenses.

Exactly WTF is the point you are trying to make?

That last post was from me.

Oh, and, by the way: McCain also gave away that $700 billion. In case you're confused on that point as well.

My reading is that if your employer provides health insurance jennifer

If I read the McCain issues page correctly, you benefit from the $5000 whether you are in or opt out of an employer based program. Thus, on a $12,000 policy if the company pays the whole amount the insurance co. would get the $5000 credit on your behalf. The company would then probably agree to split the remaining $7000. You would pay $3500 plus tax on $3500. But maybe I'm misinterpreting this.

Danp - I know that's what his website says, but then again, his website says nothing about his plans to tax people who choose to remain in employer-provided plans. Here's what the >National Journal's assessment of the McCain proposal says (and there are many others who have read the actual plan - not the for-public-consumption-best-light-possible-version presented on the website - who agree):

Damned tags. I swear, I did it right. This comment system sucks Chef's salty chocolate balls (love the glitch that doesn't allow a tag to extend beyond a paragraph break!!! And the one that makes you re-enter your info every post.)

Here's that link:

National Journal.

I must misunderstand the meaning of "tax credit", "income" and "deduction" as applied to McCain's health plan.

Last time I did my taxes a "tax credit" was something that applied only to federal income taxes that I owed after tax computation. Tax credits are great if you pay a lot of tax, they directly reduce your federal income tax burden. If I owed exactly $5000 in taxes, the credit would reduce this amount to zero.

But if I don't owe at least $5000 in taxes, I can't deduct all of the credit. You have to make quite a lot, or screw up your tax return badly to pay that much.

So is this a general credit? Do I need to show that I spent at least $5000 on health insurance to get a $5000 credit? This would be a disaster of a policy, because everyone with a $5000 tax bill would realize that they should go out and purchase a $5000 policy _at minimum_ because this "fee" would replace tax due on a much larger amount of income.

Imagine that you stick with your employer insurance. The credit will help offset income tax, but what about Social Security and FICA taxes? If this is ordinary income, both you and your employer have to chip in for this approximate 15% tax. With no changes, the employer will also pay more to continue with the health insurance.

I can't see how any of this is good for businesses.

One other problem is the $5000/family idea. This per family feature will drive employers to drop the insurance faster than anything else. Since this is a private benefit replaced with a government tax credit, the company will not get anything for maintaining a program which every employee can get regardless of where they are employed.

"Are you suggesting that currently there is a federal subsidy to employers for providing partial health insurance benefits?"

I deunno about that, but I am pointing out that uiniversal health insurance is a subsidy. If the issue was spreading the risk, then federal mandates on regional economies could accomplish that. Out of a million humans, there is enough variation to spread the risk. So why do we want to spread the risk nationally? It is uneccessary.

What universal insurance does is provide subsidies, that is, more than spread the risk it guarantees subsidies to make sure no one is left out. That is what Obama wants, to provide enough subsidies so that universal health insurance covers everyone.

But, that is exactly what Obama and Pelosi want with financial insurance, subsidize the investment banks so all their financial risk is insured, even though the private sector will not insure them. This is what the bail out is about, it is an insurance subsidy.

My point is, being stuck with a limited availability of resources Obama cannot subsidize everyone's insurance (financial, medical, agriculture, military security etc). Obama has only 19.7% of the economic resources to work with (Hauser's law on the limit of federal revenue).

Hence, when Obama makes a choice to provide universal coverage for financials, then he will undoubtedly have to reduce universal coverage for medical. When Pelosi and Obama chose to provide insurance ($700 billion) to the investment banks, they delayed the discussion about universal medical insurance for five years. They did that right in front of your nose with you agreeing to it all, now you will wait five years to get insurance subsidies for your favorite program.

From what I read McCain's plan will fall short for those with present or past health problems.
And with it being deregulated, insurers could choose not to cover pre-existing conditions.
The November Consumer Report Magazine compares and contrasts the McCain and Obama plans.
It gives several scenarios and how it could play out.

Matt - if what you're saying is "Obama has fewer resources to work with to address universal health coverage thanks to the bailout" well, duh. Why didn't you just say that to begin with?

Though I'm not at all sure why, even given the bailout (which McCain also voted for), McCain's horrid plan would be an improvement. As I understand it, a good part of Obama's plan involves regulating insurers so they can no longer get away with cherry-picking who they will insure and refusing to cover legitimate medical claims, neither of which involve federal subsidy. Even if the bailout results in NO action on healthcare by Obama w/r/t getting the uninsured into some type of plan, that would still be preferable to the McCain plan to tax everyone on their health benefits and encourage employers to stop providing coverage. Because even a President McCain (ugh!) will be operating under the financial constraints imposed by the bailout that, as noted, he voted for too. So worst case scenario is that under a President Obama, thanks to the bailout, there's no action on health care for 5 years...during which we continue to see the current trend of growth in the uninsured. Meanwhile, worst case scenario under a President McCain is also that nothing happens on health care, because if Obama's not gonna be able to come up with the money thanks to the bailout, where do you think McCain is going to get those $2500 - $5000 "tax credits" from? The people whose health insurance benefits he's going to tax? Well, maybe so. But then you still have the issue that it will throw a lot more people into the pool of the uninsured - and uninsurable - than a "do nothing" approach.

I guess my issue with what you've said is the pretense that only one of the candidates will have to deal with the lack of financial resources imposed by the bailout. That's just illogical. If anything, McCain's plan to cut taxes for rich people even more would tie his hands more than Obama's would be tied - that is, if McCain had any real plan to help uninsured people become insured. Which he doesn't.

The ONLY decent health coverage is for groups...and a family is not a group.
Even if good plans were available individuals know so little about the wording or what to look for they would only find out when a family member became very ill that what they had was worthless.

jennifer - Thanks for the explanation and the link. I stand corrected.

I actually got to see this ad on CNN (nobody's running ads in Kentucky) and it's not bad - if you don't understand fuck about health care.

Actually claims a "middle road" between "government-run" and private health care is the solution.

Sigh.

A: There is NO "middle road." Either you have private insurance, or you have expanded Medicare. There is NOTHING in between.

B. No improvement, not even the most minor, is possible in U.S. health care until private insurance companies are outlawed and their former executives publicly executed.

Either Obama doesn't know this, in which case he's incredibly stupid, or he's lying.

I would give my house to ensure Obama's election, but on healthcare he is completely full of shit.

Yellow Dog - hate to say it, but I agree 100%.

Even so, Obama's plan isn't the abortion that McCain's is.

"Matt - if what you're saying is "Obama has fewer resources to work with to address universal health coverage thanks to the bailout" well, duh. Why didn't you just say that to begin with?"

On the argument of fewer, or restricted resources, I think I have been bitching about that for, let me see... eight years on this blog. I have bitching about this since way before the latest housing run up.

"A good part of Obama's plan involves regulating insurers so they can no longer get away with cherry-picking who they will insure "

This is exactly the same argument that Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac have made. Given the government restrictions, they can fall back on government guarantees, or else you get what you have now, insurance firms also pay for the uncovered by inflated hospital fees, which get sent to the consumer.

I am not here to support McCain or Obama, but to deal with the central law, which the progressives must deal with. You will have 19.7% of the economy, take that as proven theory and your can do whatever the candidates think.

IMHO, health care subsidies trump wars in Iraq, but I say that only because we have Bush.

If it were up to me, I would slowly take this nation down to 18% of the economy for the federal share, which is where the best president we have had, Clinton, was taking us, and the poor did very much better under Clinton and a smaller federal share. I have been a long time supporter of old Bubba, still am.

While I am on the soap box, let me give you my take on health care:

Simply federalize the emergency room service across the nation, completely paid for by the federales. Then require clinics paid for by states, specifically clinics focused on the major causes of disease, blood sugar, drugs, high blood pressure, etc. Specialized clinics are the only cost effective method in health care, proven over and over. The main enemy of specialized clinics are the health care professional unions, AMA, for example.

But specialized clinics get you what you want. And socializing the emergency rooms is something socialists can do very well, it is a defined protocol, not open to much interpretation, specified inputs and outputs.

I never believe in indirect socialism, like the poster who said, nationalize the banks, he hit the target in the sense that you cannot be an indirect socialist, you have to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty.

So, if McCain treats employer provided insurance premiums as income, every time the insurance company raises rates, you just got a raise. Except with this raise, you get no cash, just a bigger tax bite. So a raise will cost you. Which does fit nicely with their basic premise that up is down and war is peace.

orange

From what I understand about this plan, you choose your insurance company, inform the government and they send them a check. That sounds simple. But wait! Does that mean that I have to buy a whole year worth of insurance at once? What if I change my mind? What if I want one policy and my wife wants another? What if both adults work at different companies today which offer insurance through different providers, and they are forced to choose a single provider and potentially need to change doctors.

Actually, that would be exactly my case. I use an HMO, my family uses a different plan.

This is not uncommon for professional couples, or where one spouse runs a small business.

The more I look at this, the more big brother it sounds, if only because it creates a "limited credit" which ties family members together.

"I know the guy [Obama] never took Algebra-2, but he must realize that many of us have!"
Posted by: MattYoung on October 4, 2008

I suspect Obama did take it.

But, did you know McCain didn't. It was a long long time ago and they didn't have the number 2 yet.

Maybe that's why McCain somehow thinks a $5,000 credit will pay for a $12,000 policy.

We can't trust John McCain because he Mcan't count.

ouerboviel

ouerboviel