WSJ.com - Almost Everyone Would Do Better Under the McCain Health Plan

WSJ.com - Opinion: Almost Everyone Would Do Better Under the McCain Health Plan

His tax credit is larger than the current tax subsidy for insurance.

The McCain health-care insurance tax credit may well be one of the most misunderstood proposals of this presidential election. Barack Obama has been ruthless in his attacks. But the tax credit is highly progressive and will provide a powerful incentive for people to purchase health insurance. These features under normal circumstances should endear Democrats to the proposal.

Consider the current exclusion. Its value rises with how much someone spends on health care, and how much of this spending is funneled through employer-sponsored health-care coverage. This creates an incentive for people to purchase policies with low deductibles, or which cover routine spending. These policies look a lot less like insurance and more like prefunded spending accounts purchased through employers and managed by insurance companies. Consider homeowners and auto insurance policies. Do these cover routine spending on cleaning the gutters or tuning up a car?

The subsidy encourages people to buy bigger policies that cover more, and leads to greater health-care spending. Moreover, lower deductibles and coverage of routine spending dulls consumers' sensitivity to price. Reducing the tax bias should result in insurance that is more focused on catastrophic coverage and less on routine spending.