McCain’s healthcare plan

While John McCain is busy turning the page on the financial crisis with the help of Bill Ayers, Barack Obama is diving deeper into the economic issues that affect Americans the most.

Here in Florida, the Obama team is running a new ad on McCain's healthcare plan. It's clear from the sheer volume of the ad buy that this is going to be a central theme over the remaining weeks of the campaign (the spot is on almost as often as those FreeCreditReport.com guys). Watch it below, then read PolitiFact's fact check.

Now we can quibble all day long about whether eliminating a tax break equals raising taxes, or speculate about what kind of impact either candidate's plan will have on the "average American family." One thing I am reasonably certain about is that I am not the average American when it comes to healthcare needs and expenses. So when I researched the claims made in Obama's ad and found the PolitiFact article, one thing jumped out at me in huge flashing neon lights:

There's an excellent reason that the [$5,000] credit goes to the insurance companies. It's so people don't blow the tax credit on cigarettes and beer (or whatever else they'd like) instead of health insurance. Under McCain's plan, workers would pay taxes on the health exemption, but they would get $2,500 knocked off their health insurance bill. If workers come out ahead and there's money left over, that would go into a health spending account for them to spend on health-related incidentals.

McCain and Palin are fond of rhetorically asking their audiences if they really want the government managing their health insurance, as they assert it would in Obama's plan. But as far as I'm concerned, I don't want my insurance company managing my healthcare! I have had no experiences to cause me to believe that the insurance companies wouldn't just let prices drift upwards to make up for the tax credit.

But there's another issue that really bugs me, as indicated by the emphasis I added to the last line in the quote above. Despite the fact that I have what passes for good insurance these days, it doesn't really pay for the bulk of my expenses. My family spends upwards of $800/month for my chiropractic, acupuncture, and massage treatments. These are not New Age indulgences; I started each of these modalities on the advice of allopathic ("Western") physicians to help manage pain, strengthen my immune system, and improve respiratory function. It's incredibly expensive, but I have no doubt that these therapies have kept me out of the hospital and away from a vent.

So my concern is this: would some people use the $5,000 to buy beer? Of course. But I suspect that many more would use the money for legitimate health care not covered by their insurance. Allowing the insurance companies to take the tax credit without ensuring that their prices don't suddenly go up accordingly seems ridiculous. And then there's that left-over fund. Looking at my records for the year to date, it seems quite likely that I'd fall into that category. Ideally, I'd then be able to use that money for chiro, etc (not to mention durable medical equipment—a new seat cushion for my wheelchair, etc). But who will decide what a "health-related incidental" is? The insurance companies? The IRS?

There are so many things wrong with this whole idea of letting the market have even more control over insurance. In my mind, it's the same mentality as "drill, baby, drill"—instead of reforming the underlying problems in the system, McCain just wants it to be a little easier for us to stay stuck in it.