FrankRep
05-01-2008, 11:03 AM
McCain Health Care Plan Would Include Federal Money
The John Birch Society (http://www.jbs.org/)
May 1, 2008
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS:
Speaking in Tampa, Florida, on April 29, Senator John McCain unveiled his health care plan. While parts of the plan would provide tax incentives encouraging a shift from insurance provided by employers to insurance bought by individuals, another provision would give federal money to states to help them cover people who have been denied health insurance.
Follow this link to the original source: "Federal Money in Health Care Plan From McCain (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/30/us/politics/30mccain.html?hp)"
COMMENTARY:
With Barack Obama's campaign suffering the effects of the candidate's past association with his controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., the odds of Hillary Clinton winning the Democratic nomination seem more favorable than they have been in some time. Perhaps in anticipation of facing a candidate largely associated with "Hillarycare," John McCain's advisors may have felt it was time for the senator to roll out a health care plan of his own.
For those who do not remember, "Hillarycare" was the nickname given to a 1993 health care "reform" package proposed by the Clinton administration, the creation of which was widely attributed to former First Lady, now presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton. Under the Clinton plan, more than 70 percent of the population — including the unemployed, self-employed, and workers at companies with 5,000 or fewer employees — would have been legally required to buy their insurance only from regional health alliances established by state governments.
However, Hillarycare did not die when the Clintons left the White House. As Llewellyn Rockwell of the Ludwig von Mises Institute (http://www.mises.org/) pointed out in 1997, in response to Senator Orrin Hatch (R.-Utah) joining with Senator Ted Kennedy (D.-Mass.) in co-sponsoring a bill embracing some key elements of Hillarycare: "The last Congress gave us the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill [which] severely restricted the actuarial discretion of private insurers, with the costs of insuring bad risks sloughed off on employers and employees through ever-higher premiums. Socialism? You bet, but it's never called that when a Republican co-sponsors the bill."
Senator McCain has obviously decided that there is ample precedent for Republicans — as well as Democrats — to ignore the Constitution by involving the federal government in health care. Though some parts of his proposed plan are at least worthy of consideration, others would boldly take our nation down the road to nationalized health care, long a hallmark of socialist nations such as Britain and Sweden.
The interesting (or at least, constitutional) parts of the McCain plan involve eliminating the current tax exemption for premiums that workers pay on employer-provided insurance, replacing them with $5,000 in tax credits to help families to buy their own insurance. While such a plan might make health insurance more "portable," it is uncertain if anyone has done the math to determine what effect it would have on affordability or availability of health insurance.
With that information as yet unavailable, our inclination is to await more feedback from an impartial sampling of employers, health insurers, medical care providers, and consumer groups (if any can be found that do not have a socialist agenda, such as AARP's) and just hang a big question mark on this plank. However, our first question might be, "Why discriminate concerning who is entitled to a tax deduction for health care? Why not make all health care premiums equally eligible for tax credits or exemptions, regardless of who provides the insurance?" Then, we can let the free market take care of the rest.
Other parts of the McCain plan are as far removed from the powers designated by the Constitution as anything Hillary Clinton is likely to propose. The plan would urge states to cooperate — and provide some federal assistance — in forming Guaranteed Access Plans to locate "last resort" health insurance for those who have difficulty buying insurance, including those with preexisting health conditions. While a price tag for such federal assistance has yet to be determined, McCain's top domestic policy adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, said in an interview that it could cost between $7 billion and $10 billion.
Mr. Holtz-Eakin claims that, under the plan, the government would save $3.6 trillion over the next decade by eliminating the tax break that currently encourages employer-based health coverage, funding that would be redirected towards the individual tax credits.
The McCain plan would also eliminate individual state requirements that health insurance policies provide specific kinds of coverage. Such requirements, said McCain, create "a different health insurance market in every state." Looking at these last two proposals from a constitutional standpoint, we should recall the words of the Tenth Amendment, which states: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
When we search the Constitution (particularly Section 8, which lists the powers of Congress, which must appropriate all funding) we find many powers, including those to coin money, to establish post offices, and to declare war, but we find nothing about providing funding for health care or health insurance.
And when it comes to regulatory powers, we find that Congress is charged with regulating commerce (with foreign nations, among the several states, and with Indian tribes), with providing for patents and copyrights, and regulating the land and naval forces, but nothing about telling the states what they can and cannot require regarding insurance policies.
Senator McCain claims that such state requirements create "a different health insurance market in every state." Which is precisely the point. By allowing each state to be basically self-governing (except for matters specifically designated to the federal government — generally out of necessity for things such as national defense and international and interstate trade), the states are left free to compete with each other.
With well-governed states left free to prosper (and poorly governed states left free to flounder) voters are free either to vote for better government for their own state, or to "vote with their feet" by moving to a better-run state. In the end, competition will force better government in all states.
While parts of the McCain plan may have some merit, its basic deficiencies are rooted in the same mindset that has infected both the Republican and Democratic parties for as long as most of us can remember. That mindset says that all social problems should be solved by throwing more federal money at them.
The creation of more federal bureaucracies to administer federal funds not only increases the overhead of problem solving — by using more of our national wealth to pay the salaries of the bureaucrats — it threatens our freedom as well. If the states are our protection against an all-powerful centralized government, and people like John McCain (and Hillary Clinton, too) want to give Washington the power to tell the folks in Des Moines and Salt Lake City how to run their states, what has happened to that protection provided by free and independent states?
As Thomas Jefferson put it in 1821:
When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.
SOURCE:
http://www.jbs.org/node/7952
The John Birch Society (http://www.jbs.org/)
May 1, 2008
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS:
Speaking in Tampa, Florida, on April 29, Senator John McCain unveiled his health care plan. While parts of the plan would provide tax incentives encouraging a shift from insurance provided by employers to insurance bought by individuals, another provision would give federal money to states to help them cover people who have been denied health insurance.
Follow this link to the original source: "Federal Money in Health Care Plan From McCain (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/30/us/politics/30mccain.html?hp)"
COMMENTARY:
With Barack Obama's campaign suffering the effects of the candidate's past association with his controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., the odds of Hillary Clinton winning the Democratic nomination seem more favorable than they have been in some time. Perhaps in anticipation of facing a candidate largely associated with "Hillarycare," John McCain's advisors may have felt it was time for the senator to roll out a health care plan of his own.
For those who do not remember, "Hillarycare" was the nickname given to a 1993 health care "reform" package proposed by the Clinton administration, the creation of which was widely attributed to former First Lady, now presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton. Under the Clinton plan, more than 70 percent of the population — including the unemployed, self-employed, and workers at companies with 5,000 or fewer employees — would have been legally required to buy their insurance only from regional health alliances established by state governments.
However, Hillarycare did not die when the Clintons left the White House. As Llewellyn Rockwell of the Ludwig von Mises Institute (http://www.mises.org/) pointed out in 1997, in response to Senator Orrin Hatch (R.-Utah) joining with Senator Ted Kennedy (D.-Mass.) in co-sponsoring a bill embracing some key elements of Hillarycare: "The last Congress gave us the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill [which] severely restricted the actuarial discretion of private insurers, with the costs of insuring bad risks sloughed off on employers and employees through ever-higher premiums. Socialism? You bet, but it's never called that when a Republican co-sponsors the bill."
Senator McCain has obviously decided that there is ample precedent for Republicans — as well as Democrats — to ignore the Constitution by involving the federal government in health care. Though some parts of his proposed plan are at least worthy of consideration, others would boldly take our nation down the road to nationalized health care, long a hallmark of socialist nations such as Britain and Sweden.
The interesting (or at least, constitutional) parts of the McCain plan involve eliminating the current tax exemption for premiums that workers pay on employer-provided insurance, replacing them with $5,000 in tax credits to help families to buy their own insurance. While such a plan might make health insurance more "portable," it is uncertain if anyone has done the math to determine what effect it would have on affordability or availability of health insurance.
With that information as yet unavailable, our inclination is to await more feedback from an impartial sampling of employers, health insurers, medical care providers, and consumer groups (if any can be found that do not have a socialist agenda, such as AARP's) and just hang a big question mark on this plank. However, our first question might be, "Why discriminate concerning who is entitled to a tax deduction for health care? Why not make all health care premiums equally eligible for tax credits or exemptions, regardless of who provides the insurance?" Then, we can let the free market take care of the rest.
Other parts of the McCain plan are as far removed from the powers designated by the Constitution as anything Hillary Clinton is likely to propose. The plan would urge states to cooperate — and provide some federal assistance — in forming Guaranteed Access Plans to locate "last resort" health insurance for those who have difficulty buying insurance, including those with preexisting health conditions. While a price tag for such federal assistance has yet to be determined, McCain's top domestic policy adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, said in an interview that it could cost between $7 billion and $10 billion.
Mr. Holtz-Eakin claims that, under the plan, the government would save $3.6 trillion over the next decade by eliminating the tax break that currently encourages employer-based health coverage, funding that would be redirected towards the individual tax credits.
The McCain plan would also eliminate individual state requirements that health insurance policies provide specific kinds of coverage. Such requirements, said McCain, create "a different health insurance market in every state." Looking at these last two proposals from a constitutional standpoint, we should recall the words of the Tenth Amendment, which states: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
When we search the Constitution (particularly Section 8, which lists the powers of Congress, which must appropriate all funding) we find many powers, including those to coin money, to establish post offices, and to declare war, but we find nothing about providing funding for health care or health insurance.
And when it comes to regulatory powers, we find that Congress is charged with regulating commerce (with foreign nations, among the several states, and with Indian tribes), with providing for patents and copyrights, and regulating the land and naval forces, but nothing about telling the states what they can and cannot require regarding insurance policies.
Senator McCain claims that such state requirements create "a different health insurance market in every state." Which is precisely the point. By allowing each state to be basically self-governing (except for matters specifically designated to the federal government — generally out of necessity for things such as national defense and international and interstate trade), the states are left free to compete with each other.
With well-governed states left free to prosper (and poorly governed states left free to flounder) voters are free either to vote for better government for their own state, or to "vote with their feet" by moving to a better-run state. In the end, competition will force better government in all states.
While parts of the McCain plan may have some merit, its basic deficiencies are rooted in the same mindset that has infected both the Republican and Democratic parties for as long as most of us can remember. That mindset says that all social problems should be solved by throwing more federal money at them.
The creation of more federal bureaucracies to administer federal funds not only increases the overhead of problem solving — by using more of our national wealth to pay the salaries of the bureaucrats — it threatens our freedom as well. If the states are our protection against an all-powerful centralized government, and people like John McCain (and Hillary Clinton, too) want to give Washington the power to tell the folks in Des Moines and Salt Lake City how to run their states, what has happened to that protection provided by free and independent states?
As Thomas Jefferson put it in 1821:
When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.
SOURCE:
http://www.jbs.org/node/7952