It's too bad this idea will likely recede from the national health policy debate whether John McCain wins or loses the presidency. Even if he wins, the Democratic majorities in Congress will be so large there is little chance we will be able to move away from the traditional employer health insurance base in the next few years. All you have to do is look at the way Obama and all of the Democratic candidates for the Senate and House have railed against McCain's plans to "tax your health benefits" to see how Democrats have willingly painted themselves into a political corner that makes this idea a non-starter in the new Congress.
As I have said on this blog before, I have been largely disappointed in the McCain health plan. He started out with a bold new approach but never closed the loop on so many key elements in his plan. For example, he leaves those with pre-existing conditions to the fate of state-based risk pools--a place no one would ever vote themselves into. See: John McCain's Health Care Plan and the Uninsurable--There Are Better Fixes Than the Ones He's Proposed
It never made sense to me for McCain to ask voters to take a bold leap with him to reform the health care system but do little to make voters comfortable with the consequences of all that he was proposing. As a political proposal, the McCain health plan was a disaster. Who would ever vote themselves into such a system with less health care security than they have today?
It is no surprise that a big part of Obama's advertising budget has been spent zeroing in on the McCain health care plan's tax changes. I am surprised they didn't zero in on even more of it.
McCain's failure to make such a big leap away from our current system of third-party pay something voters could look forward to also makes it harder for more serious proposals to fundamentally redo our health care system on a platform of individual responsibility--the Wyden-Bennett plan for example.
The employer community themselves have amazingly added fuel to the arguments we need to stay with the employer-based system. The U.S. Chamber, the Business Roundtable, The National Business Group on Health, the American Benefits Council, and the NFIB have all had at least cool things to say about McCain's tax credit idea (New York Times, October 7th). The health insurers have gone along with this opposition--most certainly afraid to call for their benefit manager clients' layoffs!
Why are employers so against taking this big benefit cost off their books? They continue to see benefits as an effective way to compete for workers. They are also worried that they are going to get the bill anyway but won't have any control over what it costs in a new system.
As I have also said many times on this blog, I believe that either the employer-based or individual-based approach to health care reform could work. However, my guess is that if most health policy experts could create a clean sheet health care system in America, putting it on an individual platform would be one of the things most--liberal and conservative--would agree to do.
McCain has made such a mess of selling his health plan--and Obama has done such a good job of taking advantage of it--that I fear we have boxed ourselves into the third-party pay employer-based system, that has proven to be so expensive, for a longtime to come.
The only hope for this idea is that, in the face of daunting federal and state budget deficits, a restructuring of the system on an individual platform may be the only way we can achieve health care reform on a pay-as you-go basis--Wyden-Bennett for example, pays for itself in the third year.
But the well has been poisoned over an individual-based system in the face of big Democratic majorities that have so opposed the idea in this election.
The Democrats, in trashing the idea of a tax change for health benefits, and the Republicans in so fumbling the argument, may have taken the one way we could have done pay-as-you-go health care reform off the table.
Or, both sides can take a second look at it--this time complete with the appropriate arguments and policies that give voters the health care security they require.
Update: Speaking of fumbling the arguments for the conservative approach to health care reform, a few hours after I posted this, a leading McCain spokesman was quoted at CNN regarding the McCain health tax credit:
Younger, healthier workers likely wouldn't abandon their company-sponsored plans, said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain's senior economic policy adviser."Why would they leave?" said Holtz-Eakin. "What they are getting from their employer is way better than what they could get with the credit."
So just why would Holtz-Eakin expect anyone to vote for the end to the employer tax exemption on health benefits in favor of the McCain tax credits?
