Fact checking Dr. Sanjay Gupta's "fact check" of John McCain's $5,000 medical tax credit

ddeclue

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Fri Oct-17-08 01:11 PM
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Fact checking Dr. Sanjay Gupta's "fact check" of John McCain's $5,000 medical tax credit

Dr. Gupta just gave John McCain a free pass on his ridiculous health care tax credit plan on CNN.

Here is my response to him that I sent through CNN.com:

Dr. Gupta:

You do good work generally but I felt I must comment on your "fact check" of Sr. McCain's healthcare plans.

Your "fact check" of John McCain's $5,000 "tax credit" is terribly flawed in the following ways:

1) A $5,000 tax credit is ONLY fully useful to someone who pays at least $5,000 in taxes.

If you are married filing jointly and just take the standard deductions, i.e. your TAXABLE income has to be at least $38,680. Remember with standard deductions then your actual takehome pay would be substantially higher than that -

Single filers would need to make at least $34,625 in TAXABLE income to take full advantage.

Heads of households would need to make: 37,148 in TAXABLE income.

The point is that the people who need help the MOST and who have the LEAST access to healthcare right now are the working poor.

McCain's proposal benefits them the LEAST because they don't pay enough in taxes in the first place to take advantage of it.

This is ONE reason why his plan is fatally flawed.

Another reason is the problem with pre-existing conditions which prices healthcare out of the range of the poor or prevents them from obtaining it at all.

Another problem is that the rates being quoted in your piece are averaging single young people together with married couples with children. A family of four pays on average $1,000+ per month. This is far in excess of $5800 cited or a $5,000 tax credit.

McCain's tax credit is only useful to you if you are young, single, and well off - the people who need the help the least.

Single payer through the governnment is the ONLY system that makes sense either for citizens or for businesses because the current system traps employees into companies and prevents them from competing for jobs they are otherwise qualified for thus driving down their wages.

The existing system also hurts unemployed older workers who are trying to find a job - employers have an obvious financial disincentive to hire them if it drives up their healthcare costs.

Also our existing system puts a huge burden on businesses and shifts the burden from the uninsured to the insured when treatment has to be rendered at the most inefficient point: the emergency room.

There is a corporate health care provided perpetuated myth that our government is incapable of rendering quality health care for our people and that only the private sector can do so.

As someone who has worked extensively with military doctors in Iraq and travelled around the world to see how health care is provided elsewhere you clearly must know that this is false and you ought to do the American public the favor of debunking this myth.

I personally as a military dependent received excellent health care from birth in the United States Army Hospital in Heidelberg Germany until I was a college student and had my wisdom teeth removed - this included knee surgery, appendicitis, orthodontic braces, glasses, vaccinations, and a variety of illnesses.

Please dig a little deeper and consider what I've said.