Health Crisis: A Move to Private Insurance?

Funding for prescription medication and doctor visits has long been a health care crisis in the United States. This latest article in the NY Times highlights Senator John McCain’s detailed plan to solve this phenomenon by emphasizing a shift in insurance provided by employers to private insurance bought by individuals.

This plan would eliminate tax breaks given to businesses that offer insurance to employees, and would replace that with $5,000 tax credits to families who choose to buy their own insurance. This proposal is completely different from the Democrat’s move towards universal healthcare.

McCain’s plan came about because of the growing concern of affordable healthcare for low-income families and elderly people who are not able to work. There is much criticism for McCain’s plan. Pre-existing medical conditions make it tougher for elderly and sick individuals to be approved for private insurance.

This strategy offered in this plan focuses on easing the burden for individuals and families to purchase private insurance. It’ll be interesting to see what industry insiders think about how this can affectively achieve that result.