Subject: [big campaign] Pop quiz: CAPAF or major business industry association?
From: "Adam Jentleson (CAPAF)" <[email-masked]>
To: big campaign <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 12:21:45 -0400
List-Id: <bigcampaign.googlegroups.com>

Here's a fun activity: see if you can tell who leveled the following criticisms of John McCain's health care plan - the Center for American Progress Action Fund, or a major business industry association?

(No fair if you've already read Kevin Sack's piece<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/us/politics/07health.html> today, which is the source for the business group quotes.)

On McCain's $5,000 tax credit not covering the average family's health care needs:

*       "For families, McCain's credit is $5,000 - which covers less than half of the $12,000 the average American family paid for health care in 2007."  (Who said it: CAPAF, http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2008/09/17/health-jacket/)

*       "There are huge questions about the $5,000 per family being an insufficient amount in terms of being able to purchase the same coverage."  (Who said it: R. Bruce Josten, executive vice president for government affairs at the Chamber of Commerce)

On McCain's tax credit not keeping pace with rising costs:

*       "Concern that the tax credits would not keep up with inflation was a primary reason his 280 member companies "take a very dim view" of repealing the tax exclusion." (Who said it: James A. Klein, president of the American Benefits Council)

*       "McCain's new tax credit grows only at the rate of inflation (about 2 percent a year), while current tax subsidies keep up with health insurance premiums (about 7 percent a year).  As a result, the value of the tax credit quickly falls behind rising health care costs, meaning most households with employer coverage today would soon see a tax increase."  (Who said it: CAPAF, http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/health_taxes21.pdf)

On the group market being more efficient than the individual market:

*       "The private marketplace, in my opinion, is ill prepared today with an infrastructure for an individual-based health insurance system."  (Who said it: R. Bruce Josten, executive vice president for government affairs at the Chamber of Commerce)

*       "Nearly nine out of every ten people seeking individual coverage on the private insurance market never got it."  (Who said it: CAPAF, http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2008/04/21/elizabeth-responds-cheap-shot/)

On putting people with employer-sponsored coverage at risk of losing their care:

*       "One of the things we don't want to do is jeopardize 170 million Americans who do get insurance through their employers."  (Who said it: John J. Castellani, president of the Business Roundtable)

*       "McCain's vision places the 158 million Americans who receive their health care through their jobs in danger of losing coverage."  (Who said it: CAPAF, http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2008/08/06/fiorina-health/)

On McCain's plan fundamentally undermining the social safety net:

*       "The last thing you want to do to the average working person, especially when you're bailing out big financial companies, is take something they hold near and dear partially away." (Who said it: Helen B. Darling, president of the National Business Group on Health, a coalition of 300 companies)

*       Actually, we couldn't have said it better ourselves.

-----
Adam Jentleson
Communications Director
The Hyde Park Project, Center for American Progress Action Fund
[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>
ajentleson (AIM)
202-247-8614 (cell)

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