To: bentway who wrote (48002 ) 9/10/2004 8:04:06 AM From: JeffA Respond to At the center of Kerry's ideas is his proposal to have the federal government reimburse employers 75 percent of medical bills over $50,000 that a worker runs up in a year. The reimbursement would, in effect, make the government a secondary insurer and ease costs for employers, workers and private insurers. In exchange for the benefit, Kerry would require employers to offer insurance to every worker and to provide health programs that detect and manage chronic illnesses such as high blood pressure early enough to prevent the diseases from worsening. Kerry's catastrophic-illness relief plan is the only new health care proposal -- and the most expensive -- of this campaign season. It marks the first time in 12 years that a political leader has attempted to reorient the insurance market away from dodging the costliest patients and in the direction of implementing higher quality of care. Critics say Kerry's plan does little more than shift costs from ratepayers to taxpayers. Because he intends to pay for the voluntary program by rolling back President Bush's tax cuts for people earning more than $200,000, analysts such as Jack A. Meyer call it a "surcharge on the rich." The cost-shift charge prompted an irate response from Kerry, who called it "a completely bogus, completely illegitimate, false argument." Such criticism, he said, does not account for the likely efficiencies of scale and more efficient administration of a federal reinsurance pool. Nor does it factor in his other ideas for controlling spiraling costs, such as electronic medical records and disease management, which relies on early intervention for chronic illnesses. "There is no new bureaucracy; this is not a government plan," he said.
