- ‹ previous
- 2469 of 2798
- next ›
John McCain, Policy Genius
JOHN McCAIN, POLICY GENIUS....Jon Cohn runs down the McCain campaign's meanderings on healthcare policy today. It goes something like this:
We're going to eliminate the tax deduction of healthcare insurance and replace it with a $5,000 tax credit for families.
Oops, that means a lot of families will end up paying more in taxes. Can't have that. So what we're really going to do is eliminate the income tax deduction, but not the payroll tax deduction. All better now.
Oops again. The new plan saves middle class families from a tax increase, but by doing so it blows a huge hole in the budget. $1.3 trillion over ten years, to be exact.
What do do? Cut Medicare! Hooray!
The McCain campaign, of course, says it's not really "cutting" Medicare. It's going to save $1.3 trillion by "eliminating fraud" and "reforming payment policies" in addition to a bit of other handwaving. You betcha.
I think the lesson here is not so much that McCain is being especially mendacious, but that he was never serious about this plan in the first place. He's never really cared one way or the other about healthcare reform, but Obama had a plan so he needed one too, and this is what his advisors cooked up. If the sums don't work out right — well, tell the numbers guys to jiggle a few things around and then jabber about earmarks or something. And then get back to accusing Obama of palling around with terrorists. Mission accomplished!
I'm willing to give the Republicans the benefit of a doubt that there is a decent amount of waste in government. There might even be a decent amount of "fraud" in certain government programs, like Medicare. I don't think it's enough to make a serious difference in the budget, which is now almost $3 trillion, but waste is waste, so we should all applaud legitimate attempts to clean up the system.
I just don't understand why they are campaigning on this right now. They have more or less controlled the government for the last eight years, and even during the times when they didn't, they had enough allies in congress to launch a once-over to all government agencies.
It makes me think that they are, in fact, full of it. Shocking, I know.
As for McCain, I really, really want Obama to bring up the fact that he's been in the VA, in the FEHB, and on Medicare for almost all of his life. If I recall correctly, the editorial board of the Des Moines Regisrter did just that, and he became very defensive.
He's never really cared one way or the other
You could have stopped right there Kevin. This is McCain in sum. All he cares about is winning the office at all costs (to our country and him apparently). He never really cared because he's a conservative Republican and govt doesn't work anyway, right? But he asks us to hand him the keys anyway. Mind numbing really.
Sigh. Innumerancy strikes again. Just as with earmarks, the numbers don't work by an order of magnitude or more. McCain is obviously gambling on the state of math (il-)literacy in the US...
Was that a wink with that "You betcha?"
$1.3T in Medicare cuts ? Get that in an Obama ad soonest and play it in Florida 24/7.
This is gonna be a 400-EV landslide.
This is all too complicated. All I need to know is that Barak and friends are scary black!!
So what we're really going to do is eliminate the income tax deduction, but not the payroll tax deduction.
Payroll tax deduction? One of us is confused. Might even be me, but I've never heard of a "payroll tax deduction."
Grandpa McCain has been suckling at the government teat since birth. He was born in a U.S. government-funded hospital in Panama at taxpayer expense. Since his dad was a four-star admiral, he was covered under the VA healthcare system growing up, while he was in the service and now in his post-military life is covered under the Congressional health care plan, as well as being eigible for VA health care. Since marrying the Beer Queen made him a millionaire, I say throw the bum off government assistance and make him pull his own weight, the lazy piker.
If the McCain's tried to buy health insurance on the private market, I wonder just how much it would cost them ? A 72-year-old with war injuries and several recurrences of cancer; and a 54 (?)-year-old with a documented history of prescription drug abuse.
It's a heck of a lot more than $5000, also, you betcha.
"Eliminating fraud", I bet when they combine that with "finding inefficiencies in the system" that'll save like a bajillion dollars. Maybe they can maverick it away.
http://thesebastards.blogspot.com/
Yeah, I don't know what they mean by the payroll deduction either. I do know that there is no way in hell that McCain is going to cut $1.1 trillion without cutting benefits, and I also know that most families will be paying a lot more out of pocket for health insurance when their employers stop covering them.
Quacker in a Basement,
Just to clarify your otherwise spot-on point, military health care and VA health care are different systems. In fact, the Army, Air Force and Navy (which also provides medical care for Marines) each has it own Medical Corps.
There has been talk for years of merging the service medical corps together, and more recently even merging them with the VA system, but hasn't happened yet.
Beyond that, as a military retiree (i.e. spent more than 20 years on active duty), McCain is eligible for free Defense Department health coverage at any military hospital or at participating civilian doctors and hospitals via Tricare (the Pentagon's single payer health insurance for active duty and retired service personnel).
As a senator, he's eligible federal employee group coverage, as a senior citizen for Medicare and as a service-related disability veteran, VA coverage. The Bush administration has tightened VA eligibility to save money, service-related disabled are still automatically eligible, but healthy veterans face waiting lists. Of course, as the spouse of the owner of a big corporation, I'm sure he's eligible for corporate group coverage as well.
The election is close. Yibidy, yabidy, yawbudy. John McCain could still win. bebidy, bobody, dubidy.
Am I awake?
McCain is killing himself with his stupid health plan. The political downside of universal health coverage is that it scares people who love their present employee coverage (of course the upside is, well universal health coverage). So McCain is running on the downside (no more employee health coverage!) but doesn't offer an upside. Curious strategy that.
He should have run on the bipartisan Wyman-Bennett plan (7 of the 15 co-sponsors are Republican senators). It'd let him outflank Obama on the left (like the Hillary plan, it has mandates!) and the CBO has determined it'd be revenue-neutral by year two. http://cboblog.cbo.gov/?p=91
Whether Obama or McCain wins, the new president would be crazy not to just jump aboard the Wyden-Benett plan instead of spending political capital starting from scratch.
Grandpa McCain has been suckling at the government teat since birth. He was born in a U.S. government-funded hospital in Panama at taxpayer expense. - Conservative Deflator
CD, are you nuts? No baby can exercise a choice about the facility they are going to be born in. The parents, maybe, but not the baby.
McSlime is an evil war lord. He will lie and give you gimmicks, he will call everyone "my friends" and stick you in the back, its all a smoke screen to get elected President. He never attained Admiral like his father so his mad and his only way to redeem his reckless behavior in the Navy and his hatred for Democrats in the Senate is to become President and take us all to "Hell" with him. He does not care about the working stiff, nor medicare for the aged, his voted against childrens benefits, voted against veterans benefits, and voted for deregulation that has caused the problems we have in Wall Street.
Hey, What is your take on the Rolling Stone's Make Believe Maverick bombshell story? They torpedo McCain big time. I never knew all the similarities between Bush and McCain before.
5. ...
6. PROFIT!!
Excellent post Kevin, just correct the "What do do?"
Yeah, Ol' McCain, friends, just hasn't been much of a populist over the years. So his pandering rings hollow now.