Does anyone remember the McCain health care plan? Yeah, I didn’t either.
On the campaign trail, Holtz-Eakin promoted McCain’s plan to eliminate the tax exemption for employer-sponsored health insurance and give tax credits to individuals to buy their own coverage.
Republicans love them some tax credits! Anyway, McCain’s economic advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin is still unemployed and his expensive COBRA benefits are about to run out:
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.
“A right renal autotransplant,” he said, pointing to his abdomen as he described the 1990 transplant surgery he went through after one of his kidneys was damaged in an accident. “They got rid of the artery, moved my kidney and rebuilt me for the 21st century. If you look at my file, any insurance company would go, ‘Hmm . . .’ “
I think Holtz-Eakin should be excited that he gets to experience the wonders of the free market. That’s what he wanted for us after all.