A Cure for the Health Care Hyperbole

With all apologies to Ms. Poppins, a spoonful of research helps the rhetoric go down when it comes to the national debate over health care. 

When the presidential hopefuls uttered those two magic words earlier this week at Belmont University in Nashville, keyboards all over the world clattered with commentary. In a nutshell, Obama would put more decisions about health care in the hands of government. McCain, meanwhile, would opt for more choices in a competitive market retooled to favor consumers. 

Under the McCain plan, consumers could purchase health insurance across state lines, allowing them to choose coverage  more tailored to their individual needs at a more affordable price. Individuals and families would receive a tax credit regardless of where they work or what they earn for buying health insurance. In Washington state, this would provide critical assistance to the 600,000 uninsured in our state and would be key to getting them the insurance they need.

This is where the research part becomes necessary. Fortunately, there are good people who are paid to do just that for us:

• The Wall Street Journal has an excellent comparison in this opinion piece on the debate and the discussion of the tax credits that ensued in Tuesday's debate.
• The Business Roundtable issued this news release on the heels of the debate urging accuracy in the discussion of national health care plans and, specifically, the McCain plan.
• Washington Post political blogger Ruth Marcus offers more analysis of the plans here. She's not a fan of the McCain plan, but she does dispel the notion that his plan "is not the ill-intentioned monstrosity of Obama's ominous portrayal."

Both Marcus and the WSJ also take great pains to disabuse people of the notion that McCain's elimination of the tax preference for employer-sponsored health care is a bad thing. Under the McCain proposal, individuals would be offered a $2,500 refundable tax credit and families would be offered a $5,000 credit. Writes Marcus:

"The Obama campaign tries to scare voters into believing that this is a terrible deal, noting that the average family policy costs about $12,000.

True, but if you get $12,000 in health insurance from your employer and are in the 25 percent tax bracket, you would owe another $3,000 in taxes. The credit would let you take $5,000 off your overall tax bill. You come out ahead -- unless your insurance is hugely generous, in which case it's serving to drive up everyone's health-care costs."

Our two cents worth: choice must be a central tenet of any new health plan. As the WSJ noted:

The Democrat is merely offering Canada on the installment plan.

For more on the health care debate, don't miss the article AWB's Paul Schlienz wrote on the candidates' respective plans in the current issue of Washington Business magazine.