Reply #5: Healthcare ???

[FreakinDJ]

McCain wants to Tax Healthcare Benefits?

Some one just alerted me to this so I looked it up

Source : The New England Journal of Medicine

McCain and Obama Plans for U.S. Health Care Reform

Its centerpiece is a change in the tax treatment of health insurance. Currently, workers do not pay taxes on health insurance premiums paid by their employers.

Nobody knows how effective repealing the tax exclusion would be in controlling costs, but if it turns out not to be a magic bullet, the plan lacks other mechanisms for reliably slowing spending. Prevention, better care for chronic conditions, and enhanced competition represent aspirations rather than concrete policies for controlling costs.

It would deregulate the insurance market (Geez - deregulation has worked out so well in the S&L, Banking and Mortgage markets)

The McCain plan could consequently trigger a move from comprehensive insurance toward thinner coverage policies that shift costs onto sicker patients. Moreover, some employers, particularly smaller businesses, might stop offering insurance if the tax benefits of employer-sponsored insurance were eliminated. As a result, some currently insured workers could lose coverage.

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/359/8/781