Minnesotans would take big hit under McCain health plan, study finds
By Barb Kucera, Workday editor
http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?news_6_3807
ST. PAUL - Many Minnesotans rely on employer-paid health insurance, meaning residents of the Gopher State would be hit especially hard by new taxes proposed in Republican candidate John McCain's health care plan, according to a new report. More than 60 percent of Minnesotans – some 3.1 million people – receive health benefits though work, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The health plan proposed by McCain eliminates the employer health care tax benefits that enable many companies, especially small businesses, to provide group insurance to their employees.
As a result, hundreds of thousands of Minnesota families would lose their coverage and many more would face tax increases, according to a new report by The Center for American Progress Action Fund. One of the authors, James Kvaal, spoke at a state Capitol news conference recently, where he was joined by leaders of two Minnesota organizations advocating for better health care coverage – Julie Schnell, president of SEIU Health Care Minnesota, and Dan McGrath, president of TakeAction Minnesota.
Kvaal said the McCain plan, modeled on one proposed by President Bush two years ago, is "an ideological approach to the health care system maybe not based in reality."
McCain's plan would push more Americans toward individual health insurance with the promise of a $5,000 tax credit. The problem, Kvaal said, is that $5,000 isn't enough to buy health insurance for most Americans. And McCain would pay for the tax credit by taxing health care coverage currently offered by private employers – forcing more people into the ranks of the uninsured.
The Economic Policy Institute projects 420,000 Minnesotans could lose their coverage, Kvaal said.
Especially at risk would be the 1.1 million non-elderly Minnesotans struggling with diseases like cancer and diabetes who are now covered through their jobs. Under McCain's plan, insurance companies would be free to "cherry pick" only those individuals for coverage who do not have costly health conditions and avoid state regulations that keep health care accessible and affordable, Kvaal said.
By imposing taxes on the health insurance benefits received by millions of Minnesota families, a typical Minnesota family could pay almost $1,500 more in taxes by 2013, the study found.
The McCain plan is "shortsighted and unsustainable" and will make the current lack of affordable coverage worse, McGrath said. "It's clear to every average Minnesotan that they're already paying more for less health care."
The McCain plan does nothing to control skyrocketing costs or rein in the insurance industry's appetite for huge profits, Schnell said.
Even the health care workers represented by her union are finding it difficult to get and keep affordable coverage, she said. "If a nonprofit hospital can't figure out how to provide health care to their workers . . we're in a very serious crisis."
The Center for American Progress Action Fund, a progressive think tank, is working with the Service Employees International Union, Change to Win, Health Care for American Now and the Economic Policy Institute to make Americans aware of the negative effects of McCain's health care plan.
For more information Read the full report:
http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/wr_mn.pdf