Some Experts Dissect the Bush Plan

The Chicago Tribune's Judith Graham culled some interesting expert commentary that echoes my analysis:

Paul Fronstin, director of health research at the Employee Benefit Research Institute, envisions a series of serious consequences. More employers would stop offering health insurance and younger and healthier workers would opt out of company plans if they could get better deals elsewhere.

"This would be the end of employer-based health insurance as we know it," Fronstin said.

Robert Reischauer, president of the Urban Institute, worries that the president's plan would push more people into the individual insurance market, which is notorious for being expensive and excluding people with pre-existing medical conditions. "It's a jungle, and that's on a good day," he said.

Sherry Glied, chairwoman of the health policy department at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, predicts that the president's proposal would have a "minimal" impact on the number of people without insurance. The vast majority of the uninsured pay minimal or no taxes, making a deduction of little value to them, she said.