North Carolina’s senior U.S. senator, Richard Burr, presented the Republican proposal for healthcare reform Wednesday. The proposal immediately came down with a case of “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss,” as it is essentially the same one Sen. John McCain made during his presidential campaign. The GOP plan would end the tax breaks companies now receive to give workers health insurance. Instead, Americans would receive tax credits to be used to buy their own insurance on the “open market.” In addition, everyone would have to pay taxes on whatever healthcare benefits they receive. Burr said his plan would “finally enable Americans to own their health care instead of being trapped in the current system, which leaves people either uninsured, dependent on their employer, or forced into a government program.” One of the plan’s problems is that the money Burr’s talking about — $5,710 for families and $2,290 for individuals — won’t even come close to covering the costs of most health insurance plans. Burr, though, argues that insurance companies will offer more competitive insurance plans that would lower costs. It is undetermined whether Sen. Burr also believes the Easter Bunny leaves eggs in his yard once a year. Burr says the plan would cover 22.3 million more uninsured people, but he fails to mention that it would still leave another 26 million people uninsured. In any case, Burr’s proposal has zero chance of passing, but is being used as political cover by the GOP, which doesn’t want to be open to accusations that they don’t care about America’s healthcare crisis.
This article appears in May 19-26, 2009.
This plan is very good. You don’t mention that it also deregulates the industry, as well as knocking down barriers to acquisition across state lines and tort reform, two things that aren’t even mentioned in either serious bill in Congress now. If you are skeptical about deregulation, how about going back to Ma Bell, and $.50 per minute long distance. Cell phones and internet would have been impossible in the days of Ma Bell. As for tort reform, we know that would work by how hard the Lawyers fight against it. Do some research before you write, unless you are trying to deliberately cloud the issue with prevarications and fabrications.