Daily News Updates - Health Insurance News

Focusing On the Big Picture, Pt.6 – The experts put it all together.

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The majority analysis is that, while neither candidate reaches total universal health insurance/care, Obama at least supports it and, by far, comes the closest. The Commonwealth Fund projects that, within ten years’ time, at least twice as many of those Americans without health insurance will have coverage with Mr. Obama’s plan than would have with Mr. McCain’s. Moreover, employer-provided health insurance is likely to improve under Obama's proposal.

With Mr. McCain's plan employer-provided health insurance is very likely to decline, according to Sara R. Collins, Assistant Vice President of the Commonwealth Fund. A report issued by the Tax Policy Center, projected that McCain's plan would likely only reduce the number of Americans with no health insurance by only two million (from a projected 67 million to 65 million) Americans within ten years’ time. When assessing the Obama plan, it was projected that Obama's plan would reduce that number by 34 million. The Tax Policy Center is a nonpartisan a joint project of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute.

The report goes on to say that "Senator Obama's plan shows the greater potential for making care more affordable, accessible, efficient, and higher quality, though it will likely fall short of covering everyone." PhD, Robert Moffit is critical of these reports. Mr. Moffit is a director for the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank called the Center for Health Policy Studies. He asserts that, because a move like Mr. McCain’s health insurance/care plan is so radical and the methods have never been tested before that meaningful projections are impractical. As he phrases it: "We have never had a tax policy like this, so there is no historical experience to draw from."

Mr. Moffit’s praise of McCain’s plan doesn’t seem to focus on the crisis -- covering people who currently have no health insurance. The advantages of the McCain plan appear to be more focused on those fortunates who already have coverage and would like nicer health insurance that is more portable.

October News...