The biggest difference in the Obama and McCain plan comes down to who the onus is on to choose their insurance. Obama proposes to create a system where employers would either offer health insurance to their employees OR be subject to a payroll tax that would be used to offer health insurance to those not covered. Rather than the individuals making the choice on what they do with insurance the businesses would have the choice to either continue their current plans or pay the tax. To an employee this plan would be very similar to the system they are used to having now.
This might be a better plan for large businesses depending on how much the payroll tax is going to be. If the tax is less than the premiums there is no doubt that an employer would choose to not offer healthcare and put the burden on government to provide the health insurance.
Small businesses should be protected in this plan. The Obama plan offers exemptions for small business and allows them to take advantage of tax credits in order to offer health insurance if they choose to. This step of the plan is a smart one because an additional payroll tax on small business who currently do not offer health insurance would be very difficult for them to bear.
If you do not have any health insurance the Obama plan would offer a subsidy in order for someone to obtain insurance.
The strength of this plan is that it offers to cover anyone and does exempt smaller businesses from the plan.
The one weakness I see in it is that it could lead us to Nationalized Health Insurance as I could see large companies simply paying the tax and getting themselves out of the health insurance business. These people would then be part of a National system.
Can this plan pass? If Obama wins and has a majority in both houses it will be hard to stop.
In any event both plans are a drastic departure from our current system.
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