Obama v. McCain on Health Care

Obama sees his health care plan as part of an attempt to soften the effects of globalization.

His plan calls for every American who wants to preserve their health insurance plan to be able to keep it. His plan even includes incentives that reward employers that do provide health insurance and penalizes employers that do not (with exceptions for small businesses.) In addition to this, Obama’s plan will open up the government health care plan used by members of Congress to allow consumers – in a free market – to opt into it. Obama’s plan is designed to create incentives within our current system to gradually close the huge holes in insurance coverage and over time bring down costs. It’s a conservative plan, in the best sense of that word.

John McCain’s health care plan is radical. McCain says he wants to:

Reform The Tax Code To Offer More Choices Beyond Employer-Based Health Insurance Coverage

In other words, McCain wants employers to stop providing health insurance coverage. He proposes to include the cost of health care in each employee’s taxable income – and to offset this by offering a $2,500.00 tax rebate for individuals and $5,000.00 for families. This isn’t enough to purchase health insurance coverage in many states, so in addition, McCain proposes to effectively deregulate the insurance market and allow insurance to be sold across state lines – eliminating the consumer protections states provide, including protections for those with pre-existing conditions.

The theory behind the McCain plan is that we already have too much health insurance coverage and are going to the doctor too often because we don’t have to pay every time we do. So he proposes that every individual – or family – purchase individual or family health insurance – a radical change, and one that places much greater power in the hands of the insurance industry. As a matter of fact, it would be accurate to say it is exactly what the health insurance industry is asking for.