Another health care ad from the Obama campaign. As I said earlier, I'm not sure what any of this does for their proposal, but as an attack, it's confident and effective.
More than that, it understates the case against McCain's health care plan. In year one, you'll have to pay that tax, and the tax credit will roughly offset it. But the tax credit grows with inflation. Health spending grows much more quickly. By year five, your tax credit will have shrunk. Sharply. But health spending will be up, and so your tax increase will have expanded. Substantially. With every passing year, you pay more in taxes and receive less from the tax credit. The plan's savings -- minimal already -- are frontloaded and its costs are delayed. It's a pretty dirty trick. Meanwhile, you'll be on the individual market. Where the insurance is worse, and more expensive. It's really quite amazing. McCain has managed to build a health care plan that's a bad deal from a medical standpoint, an insurance standpoint, a cost standpoint, and a tax standpoint. Even insurers don't really win, because patient dissatisfaction with the individual market will almost certainly hasten real reforms. It is, as far as I can tell, a lose-lose-lose-lose-lose health care plan. A rare feat. For more on the tax side of this, though, see my post from the weekend.
