Question
Will the candidate provide help on a sliding scale so that all Americans pay what they can afford for health care, but no more?
The Issue
Health insurance premiums have risen by leaps and bounds over the last decade.15 Workers’ earnings, however, have not kept up: Premiums for employer-based health insurance rose 6.4 times faster than workers’ earnings between 2000 and 2006.16 With the economy weakening and no foreseeable end to premium hikes, health coverage is becoming more and more unaffordable for hard-working, middle-class Americans. As a result, every year, a growing number of families are priced out of employer-based health insurance.
To make matters worse, as health care costs continue to rise, employers and insurers respond by cutting back on the benefits that health plans offer. This strategy keeps premium costs lower, but it shifts the burden of health care expenses onto individuals in the form of higher copayments, deductibles, and other out-of-pocket costs. Growing premiums coupled with rising out-of-pocket costs are squeezing the family budgets of millions of Americans. In 2008, 50.7 million Americans with insurance are in families that will spend more than 10 percent of their pre-tax family income on health care costs, with middle-class families being hit the hardest.17
The Positions
 |
Senator McCain: Senator McCain’s health care plan provides flat health insurance tax credits of $5,000 for families and $2,500 for individuals. The value of the credits is the same for all families or individuals, regardless of their income or their premiums and other out-of-pocket costs. |
 |
Senator Obama: Senator Obama’s health care plan provides health insurance subsidies on a sliding scale so that middle class families receive more help than the wealthy, and so that no Americans have to spend more than a reasonable share of their budgets on health care. |
|
Footnotes
15 Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research and Educational Trust, op. cit.
16 Calculations on file with Families USA.
17 Kim Bailey and Beth Wikler, op. cit. |
[Return to Health Care and the 2008 Presidential Election]
[Return to top]
