Elizabeth Edwards: McCain’s health plan ’shows he is completely out of touch’ with reality.
Elizabeth Edwards: McCain’s health plan ’shows he is completely out of touch’ with reality.
Center for American Progress Action Fund senior fellow Elizabeth Edwards, who has in the past pointed out that Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) health care policies would exclude people with preexisting conditions like herself, appeared on MSNBC today to discuss the issue. Noting that employer-based health care typically costs families about $12,000, Edwards explained that McCain’s paltry $5,000 tax credit proposal is woefully inadequate:
If Sen. McCain thinks that individuals — who are at a bargaining power disadvantage from big companies buying lots and lots of polices — are going to go out and by comparable policies for $5,000 it shows that he is completely out of touch with what is happening in the health care system in America today.
Watch it:
As The New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn put it, McCain’s “great new plan isn’t new or great. And it still wouldn’t help Elizabeth Edwards get decent insurance.”
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Now Elizabeth be fair, McCrazy shows he’s out of touch on virtually every issue he discusses.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:03 pmWhat is that thing on McSame’s cheek? If he had a good health care plan, he might want to have someone check that. Oh wait, he does have a good health care plan; it’s the American people who don’t. My bad…
April 29th, 2008 at 5:06 pmI buy into a big health insurance group for my business and I pay $215 per employee per week. $11,180 per employee per year for Blue Cross PPO which covers less every year as the premiums go up. What workers will be able to pay that?
April 29th, 2008 at 5:06 pmMcLame is…uh…well…LAME!!
April 29th, 2008 at 5:07 pmThe question is StratRat is how much does he pay every day to a makeup artist to have that big scar covered up. Seems really relevant on this thread since the media spent so much time complaining about John Edwards haircuts. I’ve seen pictures without the makeup of the scar and it can’t be easy to cover.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:08 pmMcCain;s “plan”, for health care or anything else is to try and persuade the public with facile proposals being written for him by lobbyists and then if elected, to hand over his entire domestic policy to the lobbyists that are bankrollong him.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:09 pmMSNBC had Tom Coburn on afterwards , to try and rebut the lovely Ms Edwards.
That guy is an absolute d-bag and a clown ; and how his opinion is relevant or even remotely interesting is completely beyond me.
He went to the University of Oklahoma Medical School ; not even one of the Top 50 medical schools in the country , and barely in the Top 100 , I believe…..
April 29th, 2008 at 5:12 pmShayne Says:
The question is StratRat is how much does he pay every day to a makeup artist to have that big scar covered up.
And before the trolls start pouting, I am not making fun of any affliction McCain may or may not have. Any solid, patriotic American politician should make all Americans eligible for the very same coverage that Congress gets. That is only fair. They enjoy the largess of the American taxpayer, but fail to provide support back to that taxpayer.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:17 pmBut anyone who thinks that private, for-profit, insurance is going to be cost-effective, should take a look at single-payer.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:22 pmI love this woman.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:26 pmStratrat, I agree. The insurance policies of our reps in office should be made available to every American, and I’m sure they are good policies.
It’s not so much the private health care system I have a problem with, as it is the access to such care.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:27 pmShayne,
I’m sure BlueCross is a pain in the ass for insurance. Paying that much into the system, I wonder what you and your employees are getting out of it.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:29 pmGive Sen. McCain a week or so, and he’ll claim he never said any such thing about any of the specifics critics/journalists bring up regarding his insurance revolution.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:30 pmWhat. A. Maverick.
Zoeey,
I’d love to see go #2 in an Obama administration at Health care reform, this time with Elizabeth chairing the panel.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:31 pmI’d love to see her as Obama’s Secretary of Health & Human stuff.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:34 pmRU,
That’s more like it.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:35 pmleftwrong – you are an idiot.
Why, oh why are Reichwingers so freaking stupid, are they missing the common sense gene or something?
April 29th, 2008 at 5:40 pmleftright Says:
What a bunch of crap! If you can’t afford health care you can still get treatment. Federally funded hospitals cannot legally turn down anyone.
I’m sorry troll, you were trying to say something important? You try, you fail; just like your idiot in chief.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:41 pmTo leftright:
The problem with so many uninsured is that they can’t afford doctor appointments and prescriptions, so they wait until what would’ve been a fairly simple situation becomes a hospital-necessary concern.
That’s not fiscally responsible for any involved . . . And we’re ALL involved.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:41 pm(I should’ve continued with the following for #20)
April 29th, 2008 at 5:43 pm… and, so, it behooves us all to push for fair coverage for everyone.
A few hospitals can’t turn anybody away. Most of them can. And the only time they can’t turn you away is in the emergency room. The cost of people using ERs for primary care is what costs people like me who pay for insurance and the copays a fortune. But you wouldn’t care would you bloodsucker.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:44 pmWhat treatment — emergency?
In my area, a woman who miscarried needed to have her baby removed. She didn’t have the $1000, the supposed bargain her doctor offered her, so she was told to come to the emergency room once she started spilling fluids. It ultimately took that, and passing out, to have the procedure done.
I say to you right-wing “free-enterprise” freaks who believe humanity is wrapped in dollar signs: rot in hell.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:45 pmIt’s all about prevention and regular checkups. Maybe LeftWrong uses an emergency room for his check-up, but most don’t. And if I am from a family with diabetes or heart disease in it’s history, prevention and check-ups are vital in keeping the illness managed. It is far more efficient to treat early than wait.
Why are the idiots on the right side so hateful of their fellow Americans. I mean, who would be against S-chip for example? It’s healthcare! It is necessary for our country to remain strong and healthy. What could be wrong with that?
April 29th, 2008 at 5:47 pmleftright is here to dump the talking points to stir up the thread. And it nabs me. This stuff going on doesn’t fail to make my blood boil. I may fall for their trap sometimes, but at least I’m human.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:49 pmThank you, Strat. That’s a succinct post if I ever read one.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:51 pmTWO Major things Wrong with American Healthcare…
PROFIT & CHERRY PICKING.
Make the system Non Profit, and don’t allow exclusions for Pre Existing Conditions…like all other Industrialized countries have done. Maybe if people actually got Healthcare for their tax dollars, instead of endless war in the middle east…they wouldn’t be so hostile towards their government.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:52 pmStratRat Says:
Why are the idiots on the right side so hateful of their fellow Americans. I mean, who would be against S-chip for example? It’s healthcare! It is necessary for our country to remain strong and healthy. What could be wrong with that?
April 29th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
It’s a “liberal issue”.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:53 pm“Compassionate Conservatives.”
Bwaaa-ha-haaaaa. . . .
. . . except the results of their ignorance and hard-heartedness have proven tragic, not laughable, both home and abroad. And for vets, they get to experience the ridiculous outcomes of our four-branch government both on American soil and by serving those who only care about them until they become injured and are a financial burden.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:53 pmShame on the Republican Party.
Why is it that idiots like leftreich have no problem spending 3 trillion in Iraq but get apoplectic over fellow citizens getting the same healthcare that government workers do at reasonable cost? American’s my ass.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:53 pmAsk the media to pick the elitist in this campaign, and would they pick the candidate who flies around on his second wife’s private jet?
April 29th, 2008 at 5:55 pmMcWars Says:
Thank you, Strat. That’s a succinct post if I ever read one.
I appreciate that.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:57 pmThey don’t give chemotherapy in emergency rooms.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:59 pmThank God for Elizabeth Edwards. She’s the only national voice out there who is making any sense on this issue. I don’t think either Hillary or Obama really understand the problem, and McCain, of course, is not only clueless, he’s an asshole. Here’s my personal example, and I think it about sums up the issues:
I’ve been undergoing treatment for breast cancer for nearly two years. (It’s actually my second time with this; I had it on one side 15 years ago, was cured, then got it on the other side, a completely unrelated new cancer. Pretty sucky, huh?) In the middle of my multi-step reconstruction process, I lost my job and had to switch from excellent insurance that covered virtually everything I needed at 100% to the really crappy insurance offered through my husband’s part-time job. Neither employer paid anything toward the cost of our coverage, so we had been paying about $12,000 per year, and now are paying over $5,000.
Here’s what that $5,000 policy gets me: I need one more major surgery, assuming there are no complications, to complete the breast reconstruction, but my current insurance pays only a small percentage of the surgeon’s fee, nothing towards any other doctor’s fees (such as anesthesiologist,) only a small payment per day towards the hospital bill, only $50 (!) towards the cost of the implant I need, etc. I would thus be left with tens of thousands of dollars in bills for this one surgery. The kicker is that my plastic surgeon told me that she would have been willing to waive her fee, but because her medical group has a contract with my so-called insurer as a “preferred provider,” she is not allowed to waive or reduce her fee under any circumstances, or they could lose the contract–in other words, she has to charge me full price because I have this crappy insurance, whereas if I had no insurance, she could operate on me for free. (But then, of course, I couldn’t get admitted to the hospital, so that point is moot, anyway.)
This insurance is through a huge, national retail chain (not Wal-Mart, but just as well-known,) costs us over $5,000 a year for “family coverage” for our family of three, and actually covers almost nothing. Here are a few more examples: if I have a recurrence of my cancer and need chemotherapy, I’m screwed; chemo is not covered, period. It pays nothing for emergency room care, physical therapy, mental health care, and many other things; it also has ludicrous “caps” on everything else (such as a $600 per year max on radiology.) It also only covers a percentage of prescriptions, as opposed to a co-pay, with a $1,000 yearly cap, and also doesn’t cover many medications at all, even many with no generic alternative, which happens to include every medication my daughter and I take. It goes on and on, but we can’t drop this shitty insurance because my daughter and I both have pre-existing conditions and if we have a “coverage gap,” we will never get coverage again.
My own situation is bad enough and there are millions of people in similar and far worse situations. How is this the best health care in the world?
April 29th, 2008 at 6:06 pmMCMetal Says:
————————————————————-MSNBC had Tom Coburn on afterwards , to try and rebut the lovely Ms Edwards.
That guy is an absolute d-bag and a clown ; and how his opinion is relevant or even remotely interesting is completely beyond me.
Don’t insult d-bags and clowns. Unlike Sen. Coburn, d-bags are useful and clowns have talent.
April 29th, 2008 at 6:14 pmNot too long ago, here in Los Angeles, a woman DIED in agonizing pain on the floor of an emergency room – where they declined to treat her because of some stupid technicality, like the ambulance company had brought her to the “wrong hospital” or some such BS.
Leftright – someday, that might be your mother, your wife, your sister. Have you ever thought of that…?
April 29th, 2008 at 6:31 pmGod bless Elizabeth Edwards. And God will bless her, unlike the callous, hateful Repubs & conservatives like McCain that truly are out of touch with reality. She seems to be the only one so far who is willing to expose McCain’s stupid ideas for what they are– unrealistic and exclusive.
April 29th, 2008 at 7:28 pmNote to the Eds: I believe the correct transcription of Mrs. Edwards statement is: “…go out and BUY comparable policies…” Might wanna change it or put a (sic).
April 29th, 2008 at 9:40 pmBless your scrutiney of the health care plan of McCain.
He must figure everyone has a corporate jet at their desposal though their wifes inherited wealth to fly to each health care company and discuss their health plan(s) options with their attorneys.
Thats how I do it. What are you too lazy of an American to do it yourself to?
April 29th, 2008 at 11:14 pmIt’s the payment system which is horribly inefficient and McCain’s plan leaves that in place. If we are already $400 Billion in the red each and every year and you want to give everybody in the country a $2,5000 tax credit, then that just makes the deficit larger. Is there a magic money tree in DC we don’t know of.
Instead of having 2,000 different payers (each one after a profit)— have one payer who is not after a profit. Our system costs at least twice as much per capita as the rest of the world and we got 47,000,000 with nothing. The rest of the developed world does not have a single citizen without healthcare.
Switching to the obvious single-payer system would save us $300 Billion each and every year. Studies show about 18,000 Americans die every year due to lack of healthcare. There are about one million bankruptcies per year now and at least half are due at least in part to healthcare bills.
We would also have dental, optometric, and (for our trolls) behavioral. There could be no pre-existing condition, no deductible, no pre-approval, no co-pay, no question of a spouse or their gender.
April 30th, 2008 at 2:44 amYou know by this same Metric Clinton’s health care plan is pretty much the same…..pay day for the insurance companies. Now lets see here …who might you think is paying for her (all but finished) campaign.
April 30th, 2008 at 8:48 amOh yeah, she is all about “helping Americans” she just doesn’t tell you which ones.
If there is a God then he must be sorry he ever put that apple tree in the garden. It spawned republicans.
April 30th, 2008 at 4:33 pm