Obama Surrogate: McCain Will Deregulate Health Care Like He Deregulated The Mortgage Industry
After knocking John McCain as a deregulator of the banking system during the recent financial crisis, Barack Obama’s campaign hit the Arizona senator Sunday for wanting to do the same to the health insurance industry.
“Nothing would be more precarious to Americans than losing their healthcare,” Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said on a conference call with reporters.
Sebelius linked healthcare to the recent financial crisis throughout the call, and suggested that McCain’s healthcare plan would lead to a similar crisis.
“As terrified as people are about the economic crisis that now faces this country, I don’t think any situation is as personal as health care,” Sebelius said. “John McCain would apply to the insurance industry what he did to the banking industry.”
Sebelius said McCain would “dismantle state based regulation and tie the hands of those involved in consumer protection.”
Apparently the left thinks that if they repeat the “deregulation” lie about the mortgage industry long enough it will start to be true. But the truth is, as I’ve pointed time and again, that the problem with the mortgage industry wasn’t deregulation. It was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two government-sponsored entities, owning or securing 51% of the nation’s $12 trillion mortgage market. It was liberal policies like requiring Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac to buy up bad loans, such as loans made on low-value manufactured homes for up to 95% of the home’s purchase price.
In short, the problem with the mortgage industry was too much regulation.
And McCain’s plans for health care, which center around tax-incentives aimed at getting people to move off of government/employer health care plans and purchase their own plans, can hardly be called “deregulation.” Because adding new deductions to the tax code to promote a certain type of behavior is regulation. I’m not entirely sold on McCain’s plans myself, but I think he’s got his heart in the right place. In order for this country’s health care to be fixed we have got to end the third party pay system, whether that third party be employer-backed insurance or a government program.
Until people in this country feel, directly, the burden for their own health care choices prices are going to continue to spiral upward. That’s the simple truth, but Sebelius and Obama and the rest of the liberals would like the public to feel like they’re all a bunch of hapless victims with no hope for happiness and financial/health security without lots and lots of tax dollars spent on big government programs and regulations.
This really is sad. I had thought of Sibelius as one of the few rational Democrats, but this nonsense is patently wrong on both counts. McCain tried to tighten Fannie/Freddie regulation, and was summarily rebuffed by the Democrats, while his healthcare plan is far more market-driven and far less an exercise in government mandated participation and coverage than what Obama has proposed.
Ms. Sibelius is a liar.
McCain, himself, in his own words wants to do to health care regulation what he did to banking regulation:
http://www.contingencies.org/septoct08/mccain.pdf
Now to health care: Gov. Sebelius is right. McCain will throw everyone off their employer sponsored health care plan and tax their health care benefits for the first time in history. He says it as well, it is a fact.
With health care cossts skyrocketing, he’ll tax your health care benefits and then claim to give you a tax credit, but you won’t actually see the tax credit. It will go directly to the insurance company. So you have to purchase your health care first and then claim the credit on your tax return which is then sent to the insurance company.
Millions will be dropped from their current plans and left to their own on the open market, which means if you have a pre-existing condition, you won’t be able to get coverage or it will be so expensive that no tax credit will cover the cost of the insurance.
The insurance companies will still be able to exclude certain conditions such as diabetes and those who had employer coverage will be left without.
Also McCain claims that his tax credit will increase with the CPI. Too bad that health insurance increases go up at way more than the CPI. This doesn’t get more people on health insurance. It will throw more people off over time than those it will cover.
I’m not much of a football fan, but rather a hockey fan.
When the other team hooks and holds the refs won’t call it unless you keep moving your feet and try to go through it.
So yeah, if the only ones talking about it is some radio and blogger guys who’s really going to care even though the majority of people are aware of the bias.
So call the other guys on it. At this point it ain’t going to hurt.
And this: http://www.commonwealthfund.org/usr_doc/Fronstin_workershltins_908.pdf?section=4039
The Commonwealth fund found that 20% of working adults looking for health insurance coverage were charged more for preexisting health conditions or outright rejected for health reasons.
Throwing citizens who have coverage into the individual market will not cover more people nor will it save those individuals any money.
Bad policy on McCain’s part so I can see why he wants to start his smear campaign. I wouldn’t want to talk about his health care plan or the economy if I were him either.
For a very long time, those with employer-provided healthcare paid for it with pretax dollars, while those who bought their own healthcare paid with aftertax dollars. This govt-created distortion is part of the problems we are having with healthcare, and McCain’s plans to level that particular playing field can hardly be called “deregulation”. Of course, the lying lefties have made “deregulation” a bad word by lying about the true cause of the home finance problem, which was really caused by social engineering mandates that distorted the market for home mortgages.
Lefties lie; it’s all they have.
As long as the Administration and the McCain campaign don’t debunk their lies we’re going to lose the war.
Correcting the record is vital, but the Republicans in Washington don’t seem to care.
And this idiot bitch is my governor. I can’t wait till her sorry ass is gone!!!!!!!!
Don’t like it Kathleen? Tango-Foxtrot-Bravo.
Puzzle,
Perhaps if you stuck to topics of which you have some small working knowledge: over-priced labor contracts, under-paid day laborer pickets, and of course feather-bedding. Obviously mortgage finance, economics, and the functioning of markets is NOT exactly your strong suit.
Except that’s NOT in his plan that you linked to. He never mentions the mortgage or bank industries. So you’re lying Puzzle. Not that lying is anything new to you.
In fact the page you link to says that people will get a tax break even if THEIR EMPLOYER covers them.
Indeed, McCain plans to further regulate the market by using medicaid and medicare as a stick to beat doctors into charging lower prices. And using the government to force health insurance companies to continue to provide care to people who change jobs.
Or in short, not a single f-in thing you said is true.
If you really think the Obama or McCain health plan is real read this FackCheck on both the Obama AND McCain Health Plans!
http://strategicthought-charles77.blogspot.com/2008/10/obama-mccain-health-care-plans-fact.html
Whistler:
All the debunking in the world is useless if the MSM won’t touch it or twists it.
Today on WCBS Radio in New York, Palin’s comments about Obama’s Ayer’s connection were preceded by this lead-in:
The ‘low road”!! When did it become the low road to point out a candidate’s mentors and associates?
Whistler, you seem to always imply that McCain and the GOP aren’t doing enough. Remember, it’s hard to play football when the refs are part of the opposing team.
It wasn’t deregulation that caused our current economic crisis, but bad regulation.
The regulation I speak of is the CRA, which REQUIRED lenders to make so many loans to individuals with BAD CREDIT and LOW INCOMES.
Liberals are responsible for this law. It was passed by a DEMOCRAT controlled congress, and signed into law by JIMMY CARTER, our greatest president…just kiddin’.
And don’t forget the democrat party appointees to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who guaranteed these bad mortgages and pocketed hundreds of millions of dollars.
In terms of health care,
Do we really think a bunch of LAWYERS are going to improve our healthcare system.
McC, the one Senator that has been trying to stop this Democrat created economic jihad is the one that will screw up healthcare? Really? How much heroin do you have to do in order to believe that shit?
There are two areas in medicine that are generally NOT covered by insurance and government is totally UNINVOLVED–Lasik surgery and cosmetic surgery. Quality is excellent, innovation is constant, and prices have been coming down for years.
McCain has been on government insurance his whole life.
So rest assured, he only wants to change your insurance, not his. He’s happy with his.
The Democrat Party line was picked up in total by the MSM and TV channels verbatim. This is free 24-7-365 propaganda for them. I don’t think one could buy enough time on the air to counter this; and the media in most cases would not allow it to run. I am nearly 80 years old, a military vet, and a religious person—it is sad beyond words to see what is happening–all with the knowledge and collusion of the so-called (self-called) watchdogs of our freedoms. We continue to watch our elected Representatives take us down The Road to Serfdom.
So Rob,why would anyone vote for McCain based on his health care plan. It doesn’t put them in any better situation and most times in a worse condition.
Those who have employer insurance don’t want to change knowing that it will cost them more on the open market. The market is what it is right now not where you would like it to be. McCain’s plan changes none of that.
Sebelius was right.
Pparets has a point. The media agrees with the Obama/Biden view of things, and so that’s what they’re going to frame as the truth.
Because they can’t just report both sides objectively and let the public decide.
Ever notice how every last idiot KNOWS what caused this crisis? Usually its a one sentence answer. Heh.
Puzzled, you really aren’t very bright are you?
Do you really think our current economic problems, which stem from having 51% of our $12 trillion mortgage market held by two government-sponsored companies, is a problem with deregulation?
I find it hard to believe that you could even believe that yourself.
McCain is a combat veteran. And a disabled one at that.
Surely you recognize there’s a difference between that and government insurance for the general public, right?
By the way, your examples for self-insurance are meaningless because we aren’t in a truly market-orientated system now. WE need a paradign shift.
So yes, private insurance is tough to get now. That’s because the self-insurance market is tiny and has to compete with employer-backed and government insurance.