The Center for American Progress's policy blog, The Wonk
Room, is touting a new
CAP study on costs associated with John McCain's health care plan. What's the big deal? His plan, they argue, would raise the
administrative costs of health insurance. "The study flips McCain’s small
government rhetoric on its head," the post's author writes.
Well, no. It just doesn't, and it's not even confusing
either. Administrative costs in private health insurance don't count as big
government, mainly because they… aren't
government.
Okay, but what about those higher administrative costs?
They're going to make health insurance more expensive, right? Ah, see, but, yeah, they're not.
What the CAP study is
talking about isn't a rise in the cost of an insurance policy, but instead, a
rise in the number of policies with high administrative costs.
people will make the switch to the individual market, which has cheaper plans
but higher administrative costs. According to the numbers CAP cites in its own
study, individual market plans are far less expensive than those purchased through
the group/employer market. Their figures
indicate that the average employer-provided family plan runs about $12,100,
while the average non-group purchased family plan runs about $5,800.
So the real message here is that John McCain wants to
promote health insurance plans that cost less money.
