Kerry Health Plan Cost Is Revised

An analysis released Friday reduced the estimated cost of Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry’s healthcare plan by more than one-quarter by accounting for savings the government might achieve from a more efficient system of medical care.

The assumptions, if correct, would take some of the pressure off Kerry to raise taxes quite so much to pay for his plan. But they do not fill all the missing pieces in an economic platform that promises, at once, to cut the deficit and middle-class taxes while expanding healthcare and other programs.

Kerry’s proposal to extend health coverage to most uninsured Americans and make premiums more affordable for others would cost $653 billion over a decade, down from nearly $900 billion, said Kenneth Thorpe, who teaches health policy at Emory University, in a study issued Friday that revised his finding last year.

The difference comes from including savings that could be achieved by disease prevention and treatment, electronic filing of claims and other steps.

Thorpe said he could not account for savings in his original analysis because Kerry’s proposals had lacked details that were since given to him.

Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said Kerry’s numbers don’t add up. “Sen. Kerry has proposed at least $1.7 trillion in new spending, leaving a trillion-dollar tax gap that means tax increases for middle-income Americans,” he said.

Kerry insists he would reduce taxes on middle-income Americans and raise them only on those with annual salaries of $200,000 or more. Thorpe, who was in charge of financial estimates for the healthcare proposals of the Clinton administration a decade ago, said in an interview that Kerry’s proposal to raise taxes on the top 2% of taxpayers should yield more than enough money to cover the estimated $176 billion cost of the health plan in its first five years.