Presidential Debates Should Focus on Cost and Complexity

(Washington, D.C.) – The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) today criticized Sen. John Kerry’s (D-Mass.) proposed healthcare plan for forcing everyone into a single government-controlled system.    

“At tonight’s presidential debate, it is likely that a question will be asked about health care,” CCAGW President Tom Schatz said. “Sen. Kerry will talk about his plan like it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.  But it’s really the most expensive and complex system since Hillary Clinton’s 1994 proposal.  Government-run health care is stirring in its coffin but with a new name and it is the Kerry healthcare plan.”

“While Kerry’s plan purports to provide ‘affordable, high-quality health care’ that ‘will keep our families healthy, our businesses competitive, and our country strong,’ it pays to look at that details to see what is really being offered and how much it is going to cost the taxpayers,” Schatz continued, taking note of a flow chart on the Kerry plan released by Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.).

Sen. Frist’s chart shows a complicated morass of government agencies, government-run plans and federal bureaucrats overseeing private employers and health plans.  It is estimated Kerry’s plan will cost taxpayers $1.5 trillion between 2006 and 2015.  However, this huge price tag would cover approximately 18 million people, a figure nowhere near the 45 million people who are now uninsured.

The Kerry plan would combine three approaches.  First, it would extend eligibility of the notoriously expensive Medicaid program, rife with fraud and abuse, to practically every child and increase its reach to more working low-income working adults.  Second, taxpayers would subsidize employers for employees whose expenses exceed a certain threshold ($30,000 in 2006) for 75 percent of per person costs, but will only do so if the employer provides insurance to all employees (including part-timers), adopts disease management programs, and passes all savings on to employees.  Finally, the plan will create the Congressional Health Plan (CHP) in which insurers that currently offer health plans to federal employees would be required to participate.  Any employer or individual could choose to belong to CHP.

“Kerry’s plan is simply a back door opportunity to get the government more involved in healthcare decisions,” Schatz concluded.  “The fact Kerry claims this huge price tag will be covered by raising taxes on those who have incomes greater than $200,000 per year while still increasing other domestic programs is ludicrous.  It is highly unlikely most taxpayers will escape unscathed.  One study estimated that there will be an average annual tax hike of $969 to pay for his health plan per year.”

The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste, the nation's largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.