The Wonk Room

McCain Camp Lies About McCain’s Plan To Tax Healthcare

In the final weeks and months of this campaign, the McCain campaign has adopted a patchwork-like approach to selling its ever-evolving health care proposal.

In the video compilation below, McCain admits that his health care plan would increase taxes on some Americans. Campaign advisers Tucker Bounds, Nancy Pfotenhauer and even running mate Sarah Palin, disagree:

Indeed, McCain’s health insurance plan gives you $5,000 (the size of McCain’s tax credit) but takes away $12,000 (the average cost of a plan in the employer market). By equalizing the tax treatment of employer and individual plans and enticing healthy workers to buy cheaper but less substantive insurance in the individual market place, McCain’s tax reform would increase costs for sicker workers and may force some workers to opt out entirely.

As James Kvaal explains, a middle-class family paying 25 percent in income taxes and 5 percent in state taxes would experience an immediate tax increase under McCain’s plan if they paid more than $16,700 in health care premiums. Moreover, since McCain’s credits diminish in proportion to growing health care premiums, by 2014, a middle-class family (who is in the 25 percent tax bracket and pays average premiums) would pay $300 more in taxes.

But the McCain campaign is talking out of both sides of its mouth, misrepresenting its plan and consistantly contradicting the candidate.