Obama vs. McCain: An Easy Choice for the Uninsured

Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly at 2:02 AM on October 3, 2008.

One plan would cover 34 million of the nation's projected 67 million uninsured people in 10 years, the other just 2 million.

Post Tools
EMAIL
PRINT
4 COMMENTS

Share and save this post:

Got a tip for a post?:
Email us | Anonymous form

PEEK RSS Feed

Main AlterNet RSS Feed

Also in PEEK

Krugman Has a Problem with Sanjay Gupta
Melissa McEwan Shakesville

Obama Wants CNN's Sanjay Gupta to Be Surgeon General?
Nico Pitney Huffington Post

Selling 'Safer Cigarettes'?
Steve Benen Washington Monthly

Reuters has an interesting item this afternoon on an analysis of the two presidential candidates' healthcare plans.

An analysis of the two starkly different approaches to reforming the U.S. health care system offered by John McCain and Barack Obama suggests Obama's plan has the best chance of making health care more affordable, accessible, efficient and higher in quality.

The report, released on Thursday by the Commonwealth Fund, sized up the presidential candidates' plans for dealing with a health care system which has left nearly 46 million people uninsured and many more underinsured.

According to the report, Democrat Obama's plan would cover 34 million of the nation's projected 67 million uninsured people in 10 years, compared with just 2 million covered under Republican John McCain's plan.

Karen Davis, president of the Commonwealth Fund said Obama's proposal, unlike McCain's, "tries to deal in a serious way with the uninsured." She's skeptical that Obama's plan would cover literally all of the uninsured, at least early on, but Davis commends Obama for making this "a top priority" of his domestic agenda.

Reading the Reuters report, something unnerving popped out at me: it's surprisingly good, straightforward journalism. There's no forced "balance," no annoying "he said, she said," just a direct article about a report that drew an important conclusion about a crucial issue for voters.

As Ezra responded, "Don't they want to obfuscate those conclusions a bit, or possibly give prominent play to some McCain campaign adviser lying about the facts of McCain's health care proposal? As currently written, the reader walks away with a clear understanding of the evidence presented in the article and can't help but realize that one candidate's plan is substantively better than the other candidate's plan. Something's terribly wrong here."

Yes, it is sad that it's come to this.

Tagged as: obama, health care, mccain

Return to PEEK » Post Tools: EMAIL PRINT 4 COMMENTS PERMALINK

Also in PEEK
Krugman Has a Problem with Sanjay Gupta As do a few other folks ... Post by Melissa McEwan. January 7, 2009.	Obama Wants CNN's Sanjay Gupta to Be Surgeon General? Gupta hosts "House Call" on CNN, contributes reports to CBS News, and writes a column for Time magazine. Post by Nico Pitney. January 6, 2009.	Selling 'Safer Cigarettes'? Something seems wrong with this picture. Post by Steve Benen. January 2, 2009.

Comments	Turn comments off sitewide	Give us feedback »
Comments closed. The comments for this story have been closed. Thank you to everyone who participated.		View:
X-POLYGAMIST WIFE in ARIZONA [Report this comment] Posted by: X-POLYGAMIST WIFE on Oct 3, 2008 7:18 AM Current rating: Not yet rated [1 = poor; 5 = excellent] I hope Americans can see beyond the plasticity of McCain/Palin and vote for real change. We need to take care of our own. BANKING ON HEAVEN . COM http://www.bankingonheaven.com [« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5] I don't get the math on McCain's plan [Report this comment] Posted by: kabac on Oct 3, 2008 8:02 AM Current rating: Not yet rated [1 = poor; 5 = excellent] Please correct me if I'm wrong but isn't what he's saying is that people will get a tax credit ($5-6K) for buying their own health insurance. I don't know many people (currently without health care coverage and insurance) who could afford to shell out this amount of money to get health care. While I do have coverage at present, on my current salary I would have a hard time myself making the premium payments to get the tax credit months later. A dollar only stretches so far. [« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5] It's An Easy Choice for Both Insured and Uninsured [Report this comment] Posted by: FoonTheElder on Oct 3, 2008 8:08 AM Current rating: Not yet rated [1 = poor; 5 = excellent] Not only is it an easy choice for the uninsured, it should be an easy choice for most people who ARE insured. The McCain plan is right out of the right wing consulting industry. The consultants figure that the way to fix the high cost of health care to employers is to dump it on the employees and call it freedom of choice. Many people who are insured through their employer will be uninsured as employers discontinue coverage. The $5,000 credit is so puny that it will only cover some single coverages, hardly ever a family coverage. For most people, it will result in a tax increase and an additional out of pocket expense. To suggest that your employer will give you the amount that they save, in additional salary is right out of fairy tale land. The other problem will be that even though the $5,000 credit may encourage some uninsured to obtain coverage, they will need to front the money. Many of the uncovered will need to pay $400+ per month and get their money back when they file their tax returns. If the uninsured had that much money upfront, they probably wouldn't be uninsured in the first place. [« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5] caronome [Report this comment] Posted by: Bayardtom on Oct 6, 2008 9:12 PM Current rating: Not yet rated [1 = poor; 5 = excellent] I will scream if I read or hear once more the term " affordable health care"!! We all must demand from the candidates what we are entitled to have - a not for profit health care plan that covers every person in the country!!!!!Medicare for all as Dennis Kucinich proposed. It's the only plan that makes sense. We are already paying more for lousy health care from the insurance companies who are just crooks. Medicare works and it's the only plan that does work. Ask your doctors what they think. I know several doctors who will only accept Medicare because they get their money in a timely fashion unlike the insurance companies. There should be no profit involved when people need health care. [« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

«	January 2009					»
Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30	31

PEEK archive by date:

Use » and « to view other months.

Search: