Daily News Updates - Health Insurance News

Nationalized Health Care, Pt1 -- Not Democrats

The Chicago Tribune has posted a very-much-needed article in response to the charge of McCain and so many other detractors that the “Democrats will dismantle health care as Americans now know it if they gain the presidency”. This presumptive sway suggests that “employee health insurance and private insurance are going away” is very misleading and in need of correction. Much of this effort for this article was taken on and delivered by Kevin Freking, of the Associated Press. This is a very hot issue and becoming a feature response from Mr. McCain’s camp. As Kevin keenly points out, this is simply not the case. The Tribune points out that “Neither Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) nor Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) would do away with the current system under which most Americans – 158 million people under the age of 65 -- receive health insurance through their employers.” Both Barack and Hillary realize that the general public would not take such a leap. The public would not be willing to just trash the only system they've always known and depend on so much. To suggest so would be totally out of touch.

The great American dissatisfaction is not with employee health insurance, but with the soaring medical costs. In fact, the Democrats both want to strengthen our employer-based system. Two of the ways they would do this are with subsidies for small companies to help them offer employee health insurance to their small number of employees. The larger employers would either have to offer benefits or else feed the system so it can. Obama's campaign policy director, Heather Higginbottom explains “We don’t eliminate the employer-based side of the equation. We don’t dismantle private insurance,” as quoted in Kevin’s article.

To be continued…