This week, McCain lumbered to rural Kentucky as a continuation of his “forgotten places” tour. Since it hasn’t had much recent land development, rural Kentucky truly is a forgotten place. McCain said, “I wouldn’t be back here today if government had fulfilled the promises that Lyndon Johnson made 44 years ago,” a statement that, unfortunately, makes the tacit implication that Johnson’s proposals were a good thing. “The moral of the story is — government isn’t always the answer” added the senior Senator from Arizona in the United States government.
McCain also addressed the health care issue facing many rural people: “[McCain] mentioned his proposal for a $5,000 refundable tax credit to allow families to ‘go out and acquire at least some level of health insurance,’ and added that he would recruit professional athletes to visit rural communities to talk about nutrition.” McCain’s tax benefit should help to supplement the average $12,100 that employers and employees contribute to the average family health insurance plan.* But who cares about that? Obviously the most effective way to demonstrate nutritional responsibility is to bring athletic role-models like Jason Kidd, John Daly and Pacman Jones to rural Kentucky.
*Note = McCain wants to eliminate the corporate tax credit for health care which could shift the entire cost of health care to the consumers. Whatever, I’m sure he has a plan for the $7,100 shortfall.
Sources:
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-mccain24apr24,1,1363729.story
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/11/mccain.healthcare.ap/index.html
http://www.nchc.org/facts/cost.shtml
Tags: election 2008, john mccain, kentucky, politics, turtles
Turtlewatching - John McCain 
May 1, 2008 at 7:07 am |
You dislike LBJ’s “Great Society”?
Anyway, not letting employers deduct health care payments is dumb. However, saying companies will automatically stop providing insurance is a huge leap. “Mr. Holtz-Eakin said he believed that many employers would still offer health insurance to try to attract the best workers.” I agree.
Besides, even if Barack/Hillary get their law preventing health insurance companies from denying people with existing conditions, that doesn’t mean the companies can’t charge exorbitant premiums that make the plans impossible to afford anyway. McCain’s alternate idea:
“rather than force insurers to stop cherry-picking the healthiest — and least expensive — patients, Mr. McCain proposed that the federal government work with states to cover those who cannot find insurance on the open market.”
makes far more sense.
P.S. McCain “…wants more federal research into autism.” SERIOUSLY WTF is up with this lately??!
May 1, 2008 at 4:15 pm |
I think the problem is McCain’s tacit implication that rural Kentucky would’ve been better off if LBJ’s “Great Society” has worked as planed. Essentially, he gives creedence to one of the biggest, liberal, social-spending plans in the history of America…by adopting a policy that’s completely different.
And truthfully, the “Great Society” did work at a lot of levels. Poverty dropped by about 40% overall and more than half for blacks. It just didn’t work completely, so people continue to complain about it.
Most importantly, it was through the “Great Society” that we got NPR.
Here’s my source on those stats (not the best site, but at least it is a university site):
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display.cfm?HHID=372
Finally, don’t take my criticism of McCain’s policy as an acceptance of Clinton or Obama’s policies. They’re all terrible. The fact is, nobody knows what will work. I think we should let the individual states try different policies before jumping on a bandwagon of federally mandated change. The system needs an overhaul, but it’s silly to think we know what’s going to work properly at this point.
And the only reason I make the leap that McCain eliminating the corporate tax credit will eliminate corporate-provided health care is because that’s what McCain’s intention is. He does have the well-intentioned hope of tying health insurance to the individual, instead of the individual’s job. This is a good thing, but I think he understates the current costs of health care with his present proposal.
Ugh, my comments aren’t supposed to ever be as long as the posts themselves 🙂