'McCain's health plan: A threat to employer plans?'

McCain's crappy policy demonstrates perfectly the need for a single-payer system and a universal pool for all healthcare users in the U.S. (something more like Hillary and John Edwards were aiming at.) McCain's policy embodies ideological capitalism at its extreme and utter worst. All McCain cares about is his cronies in the insurance companies making money, to the detriment of people who really need health care and can't afford it. Story here. (Read it all.)

The risk needs to be spread across the whole spectrum of healthcare users. McCain has no solution, and the single-payer plan works and is more cost-efficient in the countries that use it, at no loss in the quality of care (quality being the big bugaboo in promoting the current system in the U.S., which is ultimately geared toward treating wealthy people who can afford medical treatment and don't need insurance).

The Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting has proposed that everyone buying health insurance get a refundable tax credit, $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families. At the same time, he would treat employer contributions toward health insurance like income, meaning workers would have to pay income, but not payroll, taxes on it.

McCain's Democratic rival, Barack Obama, says the plan would "shred" the employer-based system that provides health insurance to about 158 million workers.

Most health analysts won't go that far, but both liberals and conservatives say McCain's approach would strengthen the individual and small-group insurance market. And by strengthening that market, it will pull in workers now covered through their jobs.

The workers most inclined to make that transition will be younger, healthier ones who most likely will be able to buy a policy on the individual market for less than their tax credit, said Paul Fronstin, a senior research associate at the Employee Benefit Research Institute, which studies employee benefits.

To the degree that happens, the employer-based market will become less healthy as sicker, older workers stay with their employer-based coverage while more of the healthier workers move to the individual market. . . .

A poll of employer-insured voters conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that nearly two-thirds thought it would be harder to find a plan that matches their needs and handle administrative issues if they were buying insurance on their own. Eight in 10 said they thought it would be harder to get a good price for insurance or get coverage if they were sick. . . .