McCain Versus Obama on Health Insurance
Sep 22nd, 2008 | By Dawn Rivers Baker | Category: Politics & PolicyIn spite of all the talk we’ve been hearing about “change” during this campaign, neither presidential candidate offers much that is strikingly new in the way of health insurance proposals. Basically, Republican candidate John McCain wants to bring down health insurance costs by using the free market to increase competition. Democratic candidate Barack Obama wants to rearrange the system to ensure universal coverage.
McCain would tax pre-insurance income of those with employer sponsored coverage, offer tax credits to encourage folks to seek private coverage, and change the rules to let insurers offer coverage across state lines. Obama would give people a choice of a national plan similar to that used by federal employees, private insurance or employer-sponsored insurance, and has a small business tax credit of up to 50% to encourage them to cover their workers. Both plans have problems: McCain would leave lots of people uninsured and Obama would spend a lot of money the government won’t have any time soon. As for which plan will ‘work,’ I guess that depends on what microbusiness owners want a plan to do, doesn’t it?
