Tue
Jul 31 2007
01:54 pm
Giuliani unveils health care "plan"
By: R. Neal

Giuliani makes a big, dramatic announcement re. his health care "plan". It's a $15,000 tax deduction (or credit, hard to say which - the AP writer calls it both, and they are, of course, entirely different) to buy "private insurance".

He hasn't worked out all the details and he doesn't know how much it would cost or how many people it would cover (he hopes to have those numbers in the next few months).

Here's a clue. A tax deduction won't help any of the 50 million people without health insurance. Most of them don't pay taxes. Oh, if it's a credit I guess it would help everybody. It would also cost about $1.5 trillion.

He also doesn't explain where people are supposed to buy this mythical "private insurance."

Great plan, Rudy. What an incredible nincompoop.

But it's so typical -- solve everything with a tax break sprinkled with fairy dust. These guys sound like a broken record, and are so incredibly clueless I don't even know why anyone takes them seriously about anything.

Topics:
talidapali's picture

Yeah...

Submitted by talidapali on Tue, 2007/07/31 - 2:14pm.

they don't seem to understand that lots of folks earn so little money in a year that they pay little to no taxes at all...so that big old 10% reduction in taxes means bubkes. 10% of nothing is still nothing.

And nothing is not gonna pay for nothing.

Not for nothing...

I'm just sayin'...

_________________________________________________
"You can't fix stupid..." ~ Ron White"
"I never said I wasn't a brat..." ~ Talidapali

Tamara Shepherd's picture

75-80% can't itemize their deductions

Submitted by Tamara Shepherd on Tue, 2007/07/31 - 3:13pm.

"Here's a clue. A tax deduction won't help any of the 50 million people without health insurance. Most of them don't pay taxes. Oh, if it's a credit I guess it would help everybody. It would also cost about $1.5 trillion."

The only point you and tali together failed to make is that, if Rudy's proposal is for a tax deduction and not a tax credit, 75 - 80% of tax filers are unable to itemize their deductions, thus leaving them unable to take this mythical deduction on this mythical "private" insurance premium.

R. Neal's picture

75 - 80% of tax filers are

Submitted by R. Neal on Tue, 2007/07/31 - 3:47pm.

75 - 80% of tax filers are unable to itemize

Another excellent point, and another example of why these half-baked ideas aren't even worth the newsprint to report them.

CE Petro's picture

not to mention this is

Submitted by CE Petro on Tue, 2007/07/31 - 3:49pm.

not to mention this is basically the same "proposal" Bush pushed in his SOTU address earlier this year.

SammySkull's picture

Helping insurance companies

Submitted by SammySkull on Tue, 2007/07/31 - 3:13pm.

Helping insurance companies stay in business is not going to fix the problem.

gttim's picture

Better Idea!

Submitted by gttim on Tue, 2007/07/31 - 5:10pm.

I like the version when they make it the law that everybody has to buy health insurance, or go to jail or something. Think of the profits the insurance companies can make then! Of course after that will come the law that everybody has to buy 20 gallons of gas a week, even if they do not have a car! And Viagra next! Lets push some corporate welfare that really works!

Brian A.'s picture

Credit

Submitted by Brian A. on Tue, 2007/07/31 - 6:22pm.

I'll take a $15,000 tax credit. Heh.

Poor Rudy. The further the campaign topic is from 9/11 or New York City, the more confused he seems to be.

Brian A.
I'd rather be cycling.

Factchecker's picture

True, but...

Submitted by Factchecker on Tue, 2007/07/31 - 7:07pm.

The further the campaign topic is from 9/11 or New York City, the more confused he seems to be.

He's pretty much in a fog about fightin' terror too! Unless we only care about electing a leader who's good at consoling us after an attack.

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