Company health plan often touted in Rep. Braun’s ads and on the campaign trail carries $5,000 individual deductible, $10,000 for families
INDIANAPOLIS – Rep. Braun claims he’s provided affordable health care at his business that could become a blueprint for a national health care plan, but his plan mandates excruciating deductibles that would be useless for most Hoosier families – including those who work for him.
According to his company’s benefits guide, Rep. Braun’s company health care plan carries a $5,000 annual deductible for individuals and a $10,000 deductible for families, CNN reported yesterday. Considering that starting pay for employees at Rep. Braun’s company is often below $25,000 per year on an annualized basis before tax, some Meyer Distributing employees would have to pay more than half their salary out of their own pocket before their insurance would pay a dime if their child had cancer. Studies have shown that plans with deductibles less than a third as high as Rep. Braun’s company can actually have harmful effects on those covered, as members will often go without much needed care and procedures since they can’t afford to pay the full bill themselves. Meanwhile, Rep. Braun is currently running ads featuring his company’s high-deductible plan, claiming that it could serve as a national model.
From CNN: Health care takes center stage in midterms fight — and Republicans are on the defensive
Health care is dominating the 2018 midterm elections
…For many GOP candidates, it’s the first time they’ve been forced to answer for their own histories and propose their own solutions.
…The pressure has left some GOP candidates spinning — insisting that they would defend pre-existing conditions protections and lower health care costs without detailing exactly how they’d do that.
Even Republicans who haven’t voted to repeal Obamacare or sued to block portions of it are under fire over health care.
In Indiana, the home to one of the most competitive races for US Senate, Republican challenger Mike Braun is airing television ads touting the health coverage offered by his own business…
But a closer look at his business casts doubt on whether a Braun-style plan would be a better deal for most Americans.
What Braun doesn’t say in his ads: His company’s insurance plan features a deductible of $5,000 per year for individuals and $10,000 per year for families, according to the employee handbook of Braun’s auto-parts business, Meyer Distributing, obtained by CNN. High deductibles are one of Americans’ chief health care complaints and are a top target for Republicans’ attacks on Obamacare.
The average deductible nationally is $1,500 for single plans, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. That means Braun’s company’s workers who get sick could face steeper-than-average medical bills…The company did not respond to a request for comment on its health insurance plans.
Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly’s campaign says the high-deductible plan undercuts Braun’s argument that he has better solutions to rising health insurance costs.
“Even his overhyped health care plan for his own employees is only a ‘solution’ if they’re as wealthy as he is,” Donnelly spokesman Will Baskin-Gerwitz said.
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