This Time article by Ramesh Ponnuru is terrifically misleading. "Most Americans of working age get their health insurance through their employers. The Democrats running for President want to keep it that way. The Republicans don't," he writes. "[T]he truth is that it's the Republicans who make more radical proposals. They want to make a break with more than six decades of government policy."
Reading Ramesh's article, you'd think that the Republicans wanted to eliminate the employer deduction. And he's right: That would be a radical change! But they don't want to do that. George W. Bush's plan, which Ponnuru touts, doesn't do that. Giuiliani's plan, which is less ambitious than Bush's, also doesn't do that. Romney's plan doesn't do that. McCain's plan might do that, but when I called the campaign for confirmation, they never called me back, so I'm going with "no."
So yes, if they were doing this radical thing Ponnuru is proposing, then their plans might be radical. But they're not. They're not even coming close. And their tweaks to individual insurance, making it somewhat more viable, won't destroy the employer-based system either. Ponnuru misses or doesn't mention the other major reason people purchase their health insurance through their employers: Risk pooling. Within an employer's pool, your preexisting conditions don't matter, your coverage doesn't get terminated for inexplicable reasons, your insurer doesn't pick through your medical history -- you, in other words, don't become a bad deal the second you get sick. You're protected and subsidized by your colleagues. Which is important: What you want in health insurance is for it to be stable, safe, secure.
The Republicans plans don't offer that. But Ramesh knows they need to seem like they do. So he writes, for instance, of Bush's plan will "make it possible, for example, for [people] to keep their policies when they switch jobs." Yes, Bush's plan makes it possible, but not likely. Conversely, the Democrats' plans actually allow you to keep your policy when you switch jobs.
