Description: Town Hall Question #5 - Health Care
Candidate: Sen. McCain
Question: Selling health care coverage in America as the marketable commodity has become a very profitable industry. Do you believe health care should be treated as a commodity? ]
BROKAW: Senator McCain?
MCCAIN: Well, thank you for the question. You really identified one of the really major challenges that America faces. Co-payments go up, costs go up, skyrocketing costs, which make people less and less able to afford health insurance in America.
And we need to do all of the things that are necessary to make it more efficient. Let's put health records online, that will reduce medical errors, as they call them. Let's have community health centers. Let's have walk-in clinics. Let's do a lot of things to impose efficiencies.
But what is at stake here in this health care issue is the fundamental difference between myself and Senator Obama. As you notice, he starts talking about government. He starts saying, government will do this and government will do that, and then government will, and he'll impose mandates.
If you're a small business person and you don't insure your employees, Senator Obama will fine you. Will fine you. That's remarkable. If you're a parent and you're struggling to get health insurance for your children, Senator Obama will fine you.
I want to give every American a $5,000 refundable tax credit. They can take it anywhere, across state lines. Why not? Don't we go across state lines when we purchase other things in America? Of course it's OK to go across state lines because in Arizona they may offer a better plan that suits you best than it does here in Tennessee.
And if you do the math, those people who have employer-based health benefits, if you put the tax on it and you have what's left over and you add $5,000 that you're going to get as a refundable tax credit, do the math, 95 percent of the American people will have increased funds to go out and buy the insurance of their choice and to shop around and to get -- all of those people will be covered except for those who have these gold-plated Cadillac kinds of policies.
You know, like hair transplants, I might need one of those myself. But the point is that we have got to give people choice in America and not mandate things on them and give them the ability. Every parent I know would acquire health insurance for their children if they could.
Obviously small business people want to give their employees health insurance. Of course they all want to do that. We've got to give them the wherewithal to do it. We can do it by giving them, as a start, a $5,000 refundable tax credit to go around and get the health insurance policy of their choice.
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