Daily News Updates - Health Insurance News

Comparing Candidates’ Health Plans, Pt.9 – Crisis results are starkly different.

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Neither candidate thus far has provided specific health insurance figures or magnitudes on every aspect. Exactness isn’t possible at this time. But the health insurance experts have gleaned enough from what has been delivered by both candidates to lay approximate projections. Several health insurance expert organizations have taken on this task independently and have came up with strikingly similar projections.

One of the most respected organizations, called “The Tax Policy Center”, has projected the bad news that lays ahead. Using trends from the past 8 years, they have come up with a figure of the ever-expanding segment who has no health insurance. They (along with several other independent groups) project that in ten years (2018) the uninsured figure would swell to 66.8 million Americans. By that time, as they report, Obama's plan would have cut the number without health insurance by nearly 34 million Americans. On the other hand, McCain’s plan would reduce that figure by 2 only million.

The final conclusion of total cost over the next ten years was that Obama's plan would have cost $1.6 trillion and McCain’s plan would have cost $1.3 trillion. These costs may appear similar but the deliverables are starkly different. Mr. Obama's plan would deliver relatively greater benefits to the low- and middle-income families, who need it most. Mr. McCain's plan, at least in its early years, would cater largely to high-income families with greater financial incentives, while doing very little to resolve the actual crisis. This is very similar to the failed Bush plan which went nowhere.

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