McCain gives you a $5k tax credit, your health insurance costs $12K. That is a "Bridge to Nowhere!"

[flpoljunkie]

Joe Biden right now on fire on CNN!

Link: http://www.cnn.com/video/live/live.html?stream=stream4

[SharonRB]

1. Barack used that line when he was here yesterday!

Loved it!

[flpoljunkie]

3. I hope they keep repeating it!

[Kittycat]

2. Thank god they're going after that.

This is one of my primary issues, as it has a direct impact on my son's care.

[Digerati]

4. McCain Convention Heckler Speaks Out

She was thrown out of the Republican National Convention for heckling Senator John McCain and it turns out, she was from Phoenix. A local Phoenix TV station spoke with Liz about her convention visit and encounter with McCain.

http://tinyurl.com/mccain-heckler

[elocs]

5. McCain fails to mention that his health care plan would raise taxes for many Americans:

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/16570.html

But for all the talk about McCain’s recklessness on tax policy, there’s a little secret that goes by largely unmentioned: the presumptive Republican nominee is actually proposing a tax hike on those who get employer-based healthcare coverage.

In their Wall Street Journal piece yesterday, Jason Furman and Austan Goolsbee, economic policy advisors for Obama, highlighted the policy detail McCain prefers to downplay.

…Sen. McCain’s plan does include one new proposal that would result in higher taxes on the middle class. As even Sen. McCain’s advisers have acknowledged, his health-care plan would impose a $3.6 trillion tax increase over 10 years on workers.

Sen. McCain’s plan will count the health care you get from your employer as if it were taxable cash income. Even after accounting for Sen. McCain’s proposed health-care tax credits, this plan would eventually leave tens of millions of middle-class families paying higher taxes. In addition, as the Congressional Budget Office has shown, this kind of plan would push people into higher tax brackets and increase the taxes people pay as their compensation rises, raising marginal tax rates by even more than if we let the entire Bush tax-cut plan expire tomorrow.

Got that? McCain’s hollow healthcare plan is bad enough, but the fine print includes a possible tax increase on tens of millions of people in the middle class.

At a job I had a few years ago our employer was paying $1000 for health insurance for each employee. So under McCain's plan that would be an extra $12,000 a year added to my income on which I would have to pay taxes.

[backscatter712]

6. That's blatant class warfare.

What they're doing is designed to do two things:

1. Sound good to the uninformed

2. Screw the poor. The poor still can't afford health insurance, but the rich get a nice discount. This sort of thing is actually a form of regressive taxation - the more you make, the less you pay.

[bethling]

8. Also may hit younger women harder as well.

I ran a small business where our group plan still charged individually for each of the employees. Since pregnancy is a "risk" for young women, the premiums were significantly higher than they were for men of the same age. I was charged almost 40% more than my business partner whether or not I wanted coverage for a pregnancy.

[flpoljunkie]

9. Great point. What McCain is selling is Bush's Health Savings Accounts--first pushed by Gingrich.

The Republicans are still trying to sell these health savings accounts, and McCain will be their newest salesman, if he is elected. It's the Republican way to provide us with health care-that is, 'you are on your own.'

McCain, not only boasts of never getting an earmark for his own state of Arizona, he has consistently voted against anything that would help those less fortunate than he--even veterans!

What is a health savings account and what does it cost?

How much does an HSA cost?

An HSA is not something you purchase; it’s a savings account into which you can deposit money on a tax-preferred basis. The only product you purchase with an HSA is a High Deductible Health Plan, an inexpensive plan that will cover you should your medical expenses exceed the funds you have in your HSA.

http://www.ustreas.gov/offices/public-affairs/hsa/faq_basics.shtml

[Skidmore]

7. Yup, and then he'll toss you out into an unregulated "free market" where

you can get jacked out of being able to afford policies period. One of his other goals is to free the insurance industry of regulations. That approach worked well in the finance, communications, and energy markets, didn't it?

[flpoljunkie]

10. Great point, Skidmore!

[ChimpersMcSmirkers]

11. Very nice. Obama should push this HARD.

I was talking to a couple of undecideds recently and healthcare came up. They mentioned the the tax credit. I reminded them of just how much insurance costs. You could almost see the lightbulbs go off over their heads.

On a side note, I think that the "bridge to nowhere" line is a great way to describe any of McMooseMuffins policies. Turn the bridge to nowhere into the gift that keeps on giving.