Rezko Talks: Nothing on Obama

Conservatives who ignore the ethical violations by both John McCain and Sarah Palin have been counting on trying to find a scandal where none exists involving Barack Obama. Having failed to get anyone outside of the far right to see anything in the Ayers story they have been hoping that there would be something in the Rezko case to implicate Obama. Rezko is now talking. While Rezko’s testimony might prove harmful to some other Illinois Democrats there is still nothing on Obama.

The Most Ethically Challenged Ticket Ever

Steve Benen makes a good point about this year’s Republican Ticket. We have had many administrations in which the president and/or vice president have been found guilty of ethical violations after taking office. Steve notes that:

The McCain/Palin ticket is the first in American history in which both candidates were found to have violated ethics standards before a national election.

McCain, of course, was admonished by Senate Ethics Committee “for exercising ‘poor judgment’ for intervening” with federal regulators on behalf of Charles Keating, as part of the infamous Keating Five scandal.

And now McCain’s running mate has also been found to have violated state ethics laws and abused the powers of her office, as part of the “Troopergate” scandal.

Some reform ticket they have there.

More on the Keating 5 scandal here, here, here, and here.

The Risks of John McCain’s Health Care Plan

Ronald Brownstein has a review of John McCain’s health care plan. He underestimates one of the problems but is correct on the more serious problem:

Most Americans now receive their health insurance at work. That system promotes risk-sharing because employers don’t vary the premiums based on a worker’s age or health: The old and sick are subsidized by the young and healthy, who are then subsidized as they age.

McCain would upend that system. Today employers can deduct as a business expense the contributions they make to a worker’s health insurance premiums. Workers, though, are not taxed on the value of their employer’s contribution. That “exclusion” provides a powerful tax incentive for work-based coverage. McCain would end the exclusion so that workers pay taxes on their employer’s premium contribution. Instead, he would provide a tax credit ($2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families) that workers could apply to the cost of obtaining health insurance. In an ad this week, the Obama campaign described that trade as “the largest middle-class tax increase in history.”

That’s flat wrong. For all but the highest earners with the most-expensive insurance plans, the credit would more than offset the additional taxes workers would face from ending the exclusion, the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center calculates. The real problem with McCain’s idea is that, without the economic incentive provided by the exclusion, more employers might stop offering coverage. And even employers who want to continue could find it difficult because younger workers would be likely to use their credit to buy stripped-down, cheaper coverage on their own. That would leave employers covering only older and sicker workers, which could quickly swell premiums to unaffordable levels. That concern prompted the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable to criticize McCain’s plan in an eye-opening New York Times article on Tuesday.

McCain’s camp insists that his proposal would not undermine employer-based coverage. But few experts agree. Several studies have projected that his plan would move about 20 million people from employer-based coverage to the individual insurance market. And in that market, older or sicker consumers face much higher costs than the healthy — if they can buy coverage at all.

McCain would further deregulate the individual market by allowing any insurance policy approved in any state to be sold in every state. He says that would provide consumers more choices, but it would also undercut state laws requiring insurers to cover specific treatments, like cervical or breast cancer screening for women. An insurer could locate in the one state that does not require it to fund mammograms (Utah) and sell in all 50 states. Even more worrisome, notes health economist Jonathan Gruber, is that insurance companies offering more-comprehensive policies for individuals would face the same risk as employers — losing healthy young workers to cut-rate plans from the least-regulated states. That would further unravel risk-sharing and increase prices for the sick.

Obama’s goals couldn’t differ more. Through incentives for (and mandates on) employers, the expansion of government programs, and new nationwide rules for insurers (such as requiring them to cover all applicants, regardless of their health), he wants to insure more Americans through large pools that promote risk-sharing.

McCain’s approach would save people money when they are young but expose them to greater financial and health risks as they age. It repudiates the essence of insurance, which aims to spread risk not only across the population but across an individual’s lifetime. Obama is wrong to portray McCain’s plan as a tax hike. And the Democrat’s alternative raises its own tough questions, especially about cost. But Obama does not exaggerate when he says that his rival is offering a “radical” new vision of how Americans can safeguard their health.

Forcing more people to obtain insurance from the individual market will leave many older individuals, and those with medical problems, with either no insurance or higher insurance rates. This, along with McCain’s desire to curtail costs by placing more of the financial burden on individuals, is what I had been hoping Obama would concentrate his criticism of McCain’s plan on. Instead Obama has been concentrating more on the tax implications.

Obama overplays his hand on this issue, but Brownstein is also wrong in dismissing this. As Jane Bryant Quinn and The Commonwealth Fund have pointed out, the benefits from McCain’s tax credit would not keep up with inflation. In the long run Obama is correct in criticizing McCain’s plan as a tax increase, even if this isn’t the most serious problem with the plan.

Sarah Palin To Appear on SNL

It was inevitable that it would happen. Sarah Palin will be appearing on Saturday Night Live on October 25. Episodes with Tina Fey portraying Palin have brought in the highest ratings of the season for the show (and restored interest in a show which otherwise hasn’t been very funny for years.)  I wonder if Palin will do a skit satirizing 30 Rock.

Saturday Night Live has a rerun tonight, but they are doing three prime time special episodes on Thursday nights. This week’s episode included a satire of the second presidential debate which include a question from one William Murray, better known as Bill Murray back in the days when SNL was really funny.