McCain solves the health care crisis

I couldn't wait for today. Yesterday, I heard GOP presidential hopeful John McCain say that it is not the responsibility of the government to make sure the citizens of the world's richest and arguably most powerful country have health care. It's also not up to health care providers or insurers. It would be too disempowering if any of these groups were held to account for the problem (yeah, he really asserted that). The people who hold the key to fixing everything are... wait for it... families.

That's right, folks. You heard him correctly: "you're on your own."

The GOP poster boy for change-that-looks-exactly-like-what- we've-got-now delivered this message while announcing that he would unveil his plan for tackling health care today. I thought, "Really? How do you make that into a plan? 'You're on your own' sounds pretty much like a whole plan already. This guy must be a genius!"

As it turns out, he does have a plan. It turns out to be Giuliani's health care plan, but with more emphasis on blaming people who can't afford health insurance and less help to actually afford it. Here's how it works:

Let's say that you can't afford the estimated $12k that insurance will cost for the average family of four (as long as you have insurance through your employer; if you don't it'll probably cost a lot more than that). If you go out and buy that same insurance without the bargaining power of your company, John McCain will send $5000 of your money to the insurance company, hopefully bringing that cost down to somewhere around, oh, maybe $12k. See? Much more affordable!

But wait, there's more! From the McCain website, "Those obtaining innovative insurance that costs less than the credit can deposit the remainder in expanded Health Savings Accounts." Apparently, the McCain campaign looked up either "imaginary" or "worthless" in their thesaurus and found "innovative."

"But wait," you say, "that's not all there is to the plan." And you're right. The most important part of this plan is that it is a Faith Based Initiative(TM); that is, the plan requires deep religious faith in the proposition that invoking the mystical words "competition" and "market forces" will drive down prices. You may ask, "To force competition, wouldn't scads of people have to actually buy this stuff that they can't afford before it starts to drive down the price of stuff to the point where they can afford it?" Yes, you may ask that indeed. To tell you the truth I've never liked you. You're not sounding very faithful to me. Unbeliever!

The important thing about this initiative is that the Church of Rove believes that the government shouldn't simply take people's money (taxes). Taking your money really only works if the government then gives it to somebody richer than you. In this case, the government takes your money, calls $5000 of it a tax credit, and gives it to an insurance company whom you're already overpaying because you were empowered and bought it all by yourself without the clout of your employer to negotiate. Much better!

This strategy of taking your money to give to people who have more of it than you is crucial to the McCain candidacy and explains why it's important to make the Bush tax cuts permanent. You see, by reducing the corporate tax, the government can take from its tax revenues (including what you just sent in to the IRS a couple of weeks ago) and give money back to corporations. And don't forget the capital gains tax; when people sell their stocks and vacation homes, you'll contribute to their government givaways, too.

Yes, it turns out that I was wrong. John McCain really did have a plan for tackling health care. As you can see, all of those people who can't afford health care right now will be empowered by buying health care and having the extra that it'll cost them defrayed by the government sending their tax credit to the insurance companies. Gotta' have faith.