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McCain Adviser Holtz-Eakin Anxious About Moving Into Individual Market He Once Touted
Holtz-Eakin_2627fDouglas Holtz-Eakin, a senior policy adviser to Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) presidential campaign, “remains unemployed — and his COBRA health coverage is running out,” the Washington Post reports. “Irony of ironies, it gets worse. Holtz-Eakin, who is about to start shopping for insurance on the individual market, is 51. And he has one of those pesky ‘preexisting conditions’ that insurance companies often cite in denying coverage”:
Holtz-Eakin said he’s been paying about $1,000 a month to extend the private health insurance he received on McCain’s campaign through the government’s COBRA program, but that will expire in a few months. This is the first time in his life he has not had employer-provided health coverage. “I worry about where I go next in the way many Americans do,” he said.
During the campaign, Holtiz-Eakin fervently defended McCain’s proposal to shift more Americans out of their employer-sponsored coverage and into the individual health insurance market, where approximately “73 percent of the adults who tried to buy insurance” “never bought a plan — because they could not afford it, could not find a plan that met their needs, or were turned down.”
“The key to real reform is to restore control over our health-care system to the patients themselves,” Holtz-Eakin insisted in August. “Instead of only getting it in the employer market, you would get it regardless of your source of insurance. And you get the same amount whether you’re rich or poor, $5,000 for every working family.”
As the campaign came to a close, however, Holtz-Eakin did acknowledge that “what they are getting from their employer is way better than what they could get with the credit” that McCain would have offered to encourage individuals to leave employer-sponsored plans. Holtz-Eakin conceded that McCain’s health care tax credit wouldn’t cover the entire cost of a comprehensive health plan and would only allow some Americans to buy insurance in the individual market.
If Holtz-Eakin is able to enroll in an individual health insurance policy, he is likely to spend more on health insurance coverage. While Holtz-Eakin’s monthly premium may be lower than what he’s paying now, he will probably spend far more on out of pocket health expenses.
-------------------- Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise. Posts: 3827 | From: beautiful California | Registered: Sep 2008
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Number of Jobs Held, Labor Market Activity, and Earnings Growth Among the Youngest Baby Boomers: Results From a Longitudinal Survey Summary
NUMBER OF JOBS HELD, LABOR MARKET ACTIVITY, AND EARNINGS GROWTH AMONG THE YOUNGEST BABY BOOMERS: RESULTS FROM A LONGITUDINAL SURVEY
The average person born in the later years of the baby boom held 10.8 jobs from age 18 to age 42, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor. Nearly two- thirds of these jobs were held from ages 18 to 27.
These findings are from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, a survey of 9,964 men and women who were ages 14 to 22 when first interviewed in 1979 and ages 41 to 50 when interviewed most recently in 2006-07. These respondents were born in the years 1957 to 1964, the later years of the "baby boom" that occurred in the United States from 1946 to 1964. The survey spans more than a quarter century and provides information on work and nonwork experiences, training, schooling, income and assets, health conditions, and other characteristics. The information provided by respondents, who were interviewed annually from 1979 to 1994 and biennially since 1994, can be considered representative of all men and women born in the late 1950s and early 1960s and living in the United States when the survey began in 1979.
even having a high level of education doesn't change the numbers. in fact? many of the people i know that have advanced degrees got them because of the instability in the job markets...
can you imagine being qualified for a job and not being hired cuz your health insurance would be too high due to your kid having a pre-exiting condition? that's what IS coming if we don't fix it.
i'm not sure what they've done is good, or a fix, but since nobody is really trying to create something workable? what do you expect?
i am sure that selling insurance across state lines would make a mess of insurance regualtions as they currently exist. kinda like repealing Glass Stegall did in the bank indusrty
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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