McCain’s $2500 tax credit to buy a policy wouldn’t do Murph much good: she lacks the money to pay for the rest of the premium, and she wouldn’t qualify anyway. No carrier would take her on. She wouldn’t qualify for his still-vague guaranteed access plan, but it probably wouldn’t help her either. She would be unable to pay the inevitably high premiums, and she wouldn’t qualify for subsidies since she already qualifies for Medicare and Medicaid. Getting benefits from those programs often disqualifies people from state high risk pools, and the McCain proposal might work the same way. In sum, his plan wouldn’t hurt her but it wouldn’t help much, either.

Under Obama’s plan

Obama and his surrogates have pushed a strategy that builds on the preexisting “public-private partnership”—citizens can get coverage from an employer, buy their own, or go to a public program. Murph is already in the public part, which would probably make her ineligible for his proposed public program for people without access to employer coverage or other public programs. Yesterday, at a town hall meeting in Albuquerque, he said that people “need relief now.” “So my attitude is let’s build up the system we got. Let’s make it more efficient…”

Most likely, Murph and her disabled-and-waiting counterparts won’t get much relief. Obama calls for expanding Medicaid, a move that could help her get continuous benefits while avoiding the onerous “spend down” process. But an expansion would take lots of money from both the federal and state governments, and state Medicaid budgets are perennially tight. The test of Obama’s commitment to greater coverage will come in the expansion of federal programs, while maybe even compressing the waiting period for Medicare for those getting Social Security disability payments. If the public programs don’t expand to catch more people or make things easier for those already enrolled, those like Annette Murph will still be in the same fix.

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