Daily News Updates - Health Insurance News

McCain vs Obama: Common Ground, Pt.7 – Health insurance for the ‘uninsured’.

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As far as the ‘uninsured’, both candidates endorse measures to provide health insurance to the uninsured. The proposal of Mr. McCain is the creation of a concept he calls GAP (Guaranteed Access Plan). We have few details as to the mechanism, implementation and comprehensiveness of the concept. What we do know is that it will be implemented at the state level, as Mr. McCain’s platform is non-national government involvement. The implementation revolves around deals between corporations. Non-profit corporations making contracts with private health insurance companies. Mr. McCain commits that all Americans will have access to health insurance. He has earmarked $10 billion for this enterprise.

Mr. Obama is big on providing ‘affordable’ health insurance to all Americans. Special emphasis is given to the ‘affordable’ part. He stresses the importance of guidance derived from findings over ‘pre-conceived notions’. Based on the recent ‘shocking’ revelations, we’ve already seen the futility of ‘pre-conceived notions’. There would no ‘shock’ if these findings had already been ‘pre-conceived’. As was proven in the Massachusetts Model, the meaning of ‘affordable’ came to be a centerpiece. The old Federal Poverty Level cutoff was found to woefully inadequate. It was quickly learned that even twice that level was still inadequate to “provide ‘affordable’ health insurance to all their residents.

So, as successful as the Massachusetts Model was, the major lesson learned was that the ‘good’ was good but even more was needed. This is why Mr. Obama has earmarked six times as much for insuring those without health insurance, or $60 billion. Even though these funds are to come from taxes, the American public as a whole has little to fear. Over 90% of our nation’s tax payers will not be taxed for it.

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