Everyone - even those with pre-existing conditions. As long as everyone is required to purchase insurance.

Read the rest ->

The health insurance industry said Wednesday that it would support a health care overhaul requiring insurers to accept all customers, regardless of illness or disability. But in return, the industry said, Congress should require all Americans to have coverage.

——————-
In separate actions, the two trade groups, America’s Health Insurance Plans and the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, announced their support for guaranteed coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions, in conjunction with an enforceable mandate for individual coverage.

——————

But the industry’s position differs from that of Mr. Obama in one significant respect. Insurers want the government to require everyone to have and maintain insurance. By contrast, Mr. Obama would, at least initially, apply the requirement only to children.

In the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, that was a major point of contention between Mr. Obama and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. Mrs. Clinton said that everyone should be required to have coverage. Mr. Obama said he wanted to be certain that insurance was affordable and available to all before considering such a broad requirement.

Asked on Wednesday for reaction to the insurance industry’s proposals, Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the Obama transition team, said, “We are declining comment.” Mr. Vietor cited Mr. Obama’s view that “we have only one president at a time.”

Remember Hillary’s health care plan?

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton announced a $110 billion health care reform plan Monday that would require all Americans to have health insurance.
———————–

A Clinton adviser compares the plan’s “individual mandate” — which requires everyone to have health insurance — to current rules in most states that require all drivers to purchase auto insurance, according to The Associated Press. Video Watch Clinton outline her health care proposal »

In her plan, Clinton said families would receive tax credits to help pay for coverage. The tax credit would be designed to limit the premiums to a percentage of a family’s income.

Federal subsidies would be provided for those who are not able to afford insurance, and large businesses would be expected to provide or help pay for their employees’ insurance.

Clinton said her plan would not require small businesses to take part, but will offer tax credits to encourage them to do so.
———————-

Clinton’s package would also require insurers to provide coverage for anyone who applies for it and would also bar insurance companies from charging people with greater health care costs more for their premiums.

So, could we really be on the verge of near or entirely universal health care coverage? If so, the work HRC has done in AR and nationally since at least 1993 is beginning to show. BO criticized her proposals during the primary and Republicans nastily referred to it as “Hillary-care.”

It appears she was on to something workable. But why do you think BO has no comment now?

As you all know, we are led by a very wise man, Larry Johnson. Larry, being the Federalist he is, is troubled by that Prop 8 passed in California.

And, just today, in an e-mail to our little private writers’ list, Larry wrote (and I trust he doesn’t mind if I quote him):

I just wish folks would mind their own business. If homosexuals want to marry, they should be allowed. The notion of putting Government in charge of telling people who they should love and who they should sleep with always strikes me like a nightmare of sharia law unleashed here.

“… a nightmare of sharia law unleashed here …

Take that, Human Events, and stuff it up your righteous asses.

How DARE you preach about the dangers of Muslims taking over Europe and the utter necessity of breaking down people’s bedroom doors, when you’re unwilling to give health care to the tens of millions of hard-working people and their children in this country?

What f–king kind of morality is that, Human Events?

Leave people be but, my god, we have a totally broken health care system in this country. Even me! I’m on disability, which is a pittance. Subsistence. But right off the top, every month, I pay $350 to various supplemental policies and for drugs not covered by my insurance — even though I qualify for special help with prescriptions.

Thank god I did sign up for all of those supplemental policies because, when I did, I had no clue that I would have to have both of my hips replaced — with two weeks of hospitalization that involved intensive rehabilitation — followed by home health care visits from nurses, occupational and physical therapists.

And i had no clue that I’d have a ruptured appendix for FOUR months before it was finally diagnosed (I never had a fever and my white blood cell count was normal, and all I kept saying to my doctor was that I didn’t feel good and my arms ached like I had the flu), which meant many hours of surgery to clean out the huge mess inside me — peritonitis and a six-inch infected mass and leakage from ugh-guess-where (that surgeon was utterly exhausted when he finally got me cleaned out). Then I spent a full week in the hospital, and then a Wound-Vac for six weeks with nearly daily home health nurse visits to change the dressings that they stuffed into my huge open wound. My poor doctor is consumed with guilt. But I told him I have one of those healthy farm-family genetically-strong bodies, and I do not give off the normal symptoms that most people do. My stomach area only hurt the last week before my surgery even though, the surgeon is certain, the appendix had clearly ruptured at least four months before. My primary care doc — who’s the sweetest man — now knows to check my Sed Rate on my blood tests. It’s the only signal my body gives off, but it’s a weak signal. So …

If I had not signed up for those supplementals, I’d have had to shell out $1,000 just to get in the front door of a hospital each time. And would have had no home health care or coverage for the WoundVac or any of that. It would have cost tens of thousands of dollars that, obviously, I don’t have nor does anyone have to give to me.

Then, since i’m me I (but me sounds better there), I feel guilty as hell for costing those supplemental health insurance plans so much money this past year.

Enough of that.

But John McCain’s health care plan was idiotic. I like a lot of things about John McCain, but that sure wasn’t one of them.

Republicans, get the hell out of homosexuals’ lives and concentrate on doing GOOD WORKS for American citizens who desperately need your help.

By the way, Barack Obama needs to stop thinking he can have it both ways as well. He said he was against Prop. 8 while also stating he believes marriage is only between a man and a woman, so while I’m telling the Republicans to get off it, the Democrats in the “New World Order” don’t get to get away with being hypocrites, either.

P.S. All this notwithstanding, I am rooting for Barack Obama to do well because our country needs him to succeed. It would be TWISTED to wish for him to fail. It’s tempting, of course, but we must listen to our better angels as we all teeter on a precipice.

– OPEN THREAD NOW –

I’d call my Nurse Practitioner (NP) telling her I had been - GROSS ALERT - sitting on the toilet bleeding so profusely, dropping walnut sized blood clots, I could not get up for THREE HOURS (and I am NOT one of those people who enjoys reading for a while on the toilet). Her response was another hormone pill. I asked how I was supposed to get up to the drugstore when I could not get the bleeding to stop long enough to stand up?? END GROSSNESS.

That happened a few years back, when I was uninsured while doing an unpaid full time internship to fulfill a professional requirement. The Nurse Practitioner in question worked at a large teaching hospital in one of the largest cities on the East Coast. The scene described above was when I was in my eighth year of having my period every two weeks for a number of years, escalating to 6 months of solid bleeding before I had a hysterectomy.

In the beginning, I saw doctors in another large East Coast city, who also prescribed hormones. They did nothing. I point this out because I was not in some rural backwater somewhere. I was in the two largest cities on the East Coast, revered for their fine medical care.

The only success I had in dealing with this issue was with a homeopath, who at least got my periods to be every three weeks instead of two with his remedies. Oh, joy. But that did not address the underlying cause.

The underlying cause as it turned out was uterine fibroids, which were causing me to bleed practically non-stop, all while working two jobs, having my hemoglobin be so low I was told I needed to quite work rather than risk passing out, hitting my head, and killing myself, the NP said.

Well, that’s just joke, I told her (or words to that effect). If I don’t finish my internship, I cannot fulfill a requirement. And if I don’t work part-time, I have NO money. So, sorry - I cannot just sit at home doing nothing out of fear. And since I worked out every day (something that got harder and harder to do as the disease progressed - going up one flight of stairs left someone who did 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, and a number of exercises daily, out of breath. Severely out of breath. Turns out the exercise was good for iron supplement absorption, though it never made a difference in my hemoglobin levels.

The beginning scene repeated itself over and over, culminating with me begging the NP to do an ultrasound, a request to which she never responded. After all, I was getting “free care,” and an ultrasound might just cost some money. In this case, it almost cost me my life.

I finally found another health practitioner, in another city, who listened to me. Oh, she used hormones, too (injections), but that was more in an attempt to get my blood levels to a decent enough place that she could perform surgery.

The very first time I went to her office, she did an ultrasound (or her NP did, to be specific). She called me into her office and had the talk: “Do you want to have children?”

I did want children, so much, but I was already 38, and not involved with anyone. So, I had to make the decision that would end that dream permanently. I decided to have the hysterectomy to deal with the numerous fibroids that left me using two Super Plus tampons at once, as well as a super sanitary napkin - at a time. That combo only lasted anywhere from a 1/2 hour to 2 1/2 hours or so , but what choice did I have? I wasn’t about to stay in the bathroom 24 hours a day, after all.

The surgery date was finally scheduled, and moved up after a frantic call from me while on vacation with my family. The bleeding at that point had been going on for over 5 months, and was out of control in a major way. It’s a helluva way to live - I do not recommend it. Before they took me in to the operating room, I had to sign a consent form, naturally. I don’t know what made me do this, except a sneaking suspicion - I said to keep my ovaries unless they were diseased.

Prescient, that. See, what they thought was a large fibroid was actually my right ovary, and it was cancerous. My ob/gyn said it was a miracle. Had they not done the surgery, there was little doubt what the end result would have been. Fortunately, it was isolated to that ovary, which meant I did not have to endure a lot of remedies others have in my place. I did have some resulting issues from them having to widen the incision 2 inches on both sides of the original incision, but that was a small price to pay, all things considered.

And this is but one of the reasons we needed Hillary Clinton in the White House. Had her universal health care plan been in place at the time this first started, or even later in the process, I would not have endured 8 years - EIGHT YEARS - of trying to deal with this issue. I might add, I am well-educated. I even knew the questions to ask from my academic background, still I got this kind of runaround and crap care. Imagine someone with less education, less access even than I had, more hesitancy to actually ask questions and push for care. It could have been a whole different story for them. It almost was for me.

Once again, we have squandered the opportunity to have a president who cares for the citizens of this country, and their needs. We have lost the possibility of obtaining true universal health care that would have been affordable for all people. What a sad state of affairs.

I may have survived this ordeal, but others might not have been so lucky. Others might not BE so lucky. The bottom line is this: When are we going to stop playing Russian Roulette with people’s lives by going for the “cool” choice, and not the best choice? We’ll have to wait another four years to find out the answer to that question, though, I’m afraid. Because we just did it again - cool over best. At what risk, or should I say at whose risk?

It took nearly two years with an army of indomitable hunters determined to trap a POTUS* at any cost using any means, but Obama did it.

Now that the biggest, most hazardous, acutely stressful, and toughest job on the planet has been captured, what is Obama going to do with it? I get the feeling that the next steps haven’t been quite thought through.

On the one hand, as recently as in the last few days Obama declared, “We can’t afford to wait on moving forward on the key priorities that I identified during the campaign, including clean energy, healthcare, education and tax relief for middle-class families.”

Wow—these changes would be just great. Not quite sure how we will pay for any of them though because the first three seem to contradict the fourth.

On the other hand, this POTUS has been very hard to pin down. It jumps around a lot. For example, I thought we were all going to be allowed to feed it. Obama said he needs us all, that he can’t care for the POTUS without us. But Jardin at Boing Boing notes that a promise that technology would be used to involve us all in government has now been removed from Obama’s Change.gov website. That’s disappointing, especially because all the working Joes I know raised their eyebrows years ago regarding selling folks houses they could not afford. We knew this would eventually cause them (and us) considerable agony. We “little people” have also long understood the dangers of Middle East dependence on oil while our car makers merrily continued to roll out gas guzzlers. We knew these dumb decisions would come back and bite us in our collective asses. We deserve to be heard because we are apparently much smarter than our leaders and CEOs.

So, welcome to the New Zoo. Visit it often. I do hope this POTUS stays much healthier for us than the last one. I also hope it doesn’t get hidden away somewhere so we can’t see what it is up to.

*POTUS= President Of The United States

But I really thought (yes, I really did) — that day when Hillary and Barack were whispering to each other on that plane — that they’d come to an arrangement. That they had struck THIS deal: Hillary would dutifully campaign for Barack, frequently and with passion, and so would Bill. And, in exchange, she’d get to lead the Congressional effort for universal health care. And her name might even be attached to the health care plan.

(Of note: She had to campaign for Barack no matter what because, if he’d lost, she’d forever have been blamed. And even if he’d won, and she hadn’t performed, she’d have been treated as a turncoat outcast. It was a terrible situation for her to be in, and I ached for her.)

But now this?????? This twisting of the knife stabbed into Hillary and all of her supporters, most of whom came through for you (god knows why but they did), you selfish pr–k, Barack??? This comes from Jennifer Rubin, a guest of Nocturnal Warrior on our No Quarter Radio channel — on both of these must-listen archived shows on October 21, 2008 and September 16, 2008:

And For The Losers

Hillary Clinton didn’t get the VP slot. And she is not getting health care stewardship– at least not in the Senate. Politics is tough stuff. And if you lose, the winners generally ignore or spurn you, unless you have something to offer them or pose some danger to them. It might be wise for the new President to give Hillary, and Bill too, something to do. There will be rockier times ahead and it pays to keep your rivals close. Still, it is not likely she will pose much of a danger to his success. Her bargaining power is gone.

Ms. Rubin links to the New York Post’s article, “DENIED.” I decided to take a couple screenshots. The New York Post clearly ENJOYS Hillary’s pain. But they did report the story, so here goes:

______________________________________________

Did you catch that?

“In the end, it’s President Obama
who’s going to lead the effort for us,”
Myers told Inside Health Policy.

ALL HAIL CAESAR!

______________________________________________

You can read the full article here.

P.S. DO listen to Nocturnal Warrior’s archived shows with Jennifer Rubin. For one thing, Nocturnal Warrior will make you laugh yourselves silly because he is SO clever, SO funny, and makes SO much fun of Barack Obama!.

Listen to Jennifer Rubin and Nocturnal Warrior (and his sidekick Puma Pam) by clicking here: October 21, 2008 and September 16, 2008.

You cannot be angry ALL the time. Laughter is our savior!

It is wildly amusing to read articles about comedians who are stuck with how to make fun of Barack Obama. Some are even claiming that his election means the “death” of comedy.

Uh, people. Get a clue! Hire Nocturnal Warrior. He’s totally hilarious. And he mocks Obama all the time, yet is never — not once — below-the-belt cruel. That’s an exceptional talent: To be riotously funny without being nasty. Nocturnal Warrior has it down.

Every Tuesday night at 9:00 p.m. on NoQuarterRadio.

Giving him his due, Charlie Rose’s show last night (damn, the video isn’t up yet!) is very interesting — David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, has particularly insightful remarks. Michael Beschloss, the presidential historian, is also on, and I always get the giggles when I see him because I recall how the great Yale Shakespearean scholar Harold Bloom verbally condemned Beschloss and his books to the ash heap of history, as only the acerbic Professor Bloom can.

Charlie’s show last night includes a segment aired in June 2008 with the three Emanuel brothers. You’ve probably heard the remark that his mother said that Rahm is the least successful of her three sons, one being a renowned physician and the other being such a great Hollywood agent that HBO’s “Entourage” character Ari was inspired by the real Ari Emanuel. Perhaps NOW Rahm’s mom will grant Rahm equal status! I write that with affection, all the politics aside. Ah! I found the video of the three brothers last June, in full. Now, POLITICS ASIDE, this should be a fascinating show to listen to (Charlie’s videos rarely require that one also watch, so you can browse our blog and the Web while listening) + I found the YouTube snippet of the show:

In fact, I INSIST that you watch this entire show because Ezekiel Emanuel, M.D. has written what the famed economist Larry Summers (now an Obama economic adviser) calls the most important book on health care — and his ideas may well contribute substantively to the new health care systems for this nation! (I SO HOPE that that plan will be called the Clinton Plan, since it must be HILLARY CLINTON who introduces and succeeds in getting a health care plan for ALL Americans! She deserves nothing less.)

That was the more positive, interesting and forward-looking side of politics at present. Then there’s this: Someone sent me this comment that was posted at Atlas Shrugs. Okay, I’m scratching my head. We get this kind of sociopathic and sometimes psychopathic behavior here too. What happened in four years to change “Democrats” (I use the term advisedly) from civilized people into monstrous thugs?

In 2004, which I recall vividly, we sort of glared at the Kerry supporters at the county convention, and they sort of glared at us, but that was it! In the end — it took a while — we joined in supporting Kerry because at least he had SOME qualifications. When Kerry lost, we were grief-stricken, but soldiered on. Together. But now? Whatever happened to far too many of you?

You people are pathetic!

Your racist fear mongering will not go unchallenged! Soon we will shut down your hate spewing web sites. We will confiscate your firearms. In prison, you will get an education on the error of your ways. We will take your children and raise them as our own and instill in them the values of social justice. We will have a new American Republic of justice and order for all!

You time is almost up! Prepare for the dung heap of history!

Of note, Atlas Shrugs — whose writers would not probably want much to do with me because I’m too liberal for their tastes, but who cares — has a couple articles worth perusing, described below:

SCOTUS SOUTER TELLS OBAMA TO PRODUCE BIRTH CERTIFICATE DECEMBER 1 UPDATED: /OR NOT

– I hope this is entirely true and thoroughly fact-checked. We haven’t taken the considerable days (not hours) it would require to even begin to study this, and we’d need the expertise of many attorneys. So, all i hope is that this story has merit.

PERHAPS IT WAS AHMAD NIHAD’S APARTMENT….

Snippet:

How gruesome. Terrible. Imagine they planning that goes into such a thing. Planning by what was arguably the most modern, cultured state in Europe. So close at our backs, the damaged still walk among us with vacant eyes.

   
Report: Plans for Auschwitz found in Berlin apartment

Those so odious, and sociopathic and psychopathic would find much in common with some people in the U.S. who despise and wish to destroy all who disagree with them: the THUGS who are so mentally ill that, in the midst of a historic victory, they cannot stop hating for one second.

:::::::

* Footnote: Casey Anthony is charged with first-degree murder, based on state-of-the-art forensics, although the body of her three-year-old Kaylee hasn’t been found yet. (I am adding this because one of our writers, who doesn’t watch cable news, didn’t know who Casey Anthony is, and asked me to explain.)

This is one of those cases that has seized the attention of all the cable news networks. This is, and it makes me so upset, yet another instance in which a missing WHITE child or woman gets all the attention and resources of cable news outlets, whereas a missing BLACK or BROWN child rarely gets any attention. And it shames CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News that they go overboard on missing WHITE children or women — particularly if they’re pretty — but so rarely focus on children or women who are not white.

It must outrage people of color everywhere. And they deserve to be outraged.

My Friend,

John McCain

What a nice request. It is humble, and he does truly seem to love this country above all else - something I have NEVER seen or heard from Obama. McCain’s humility and integrity, along with his willingness to work across the aisle, make him a good choice, even though I do not agree with all of his policies. He is not Senator Clinton, but he is a far better choice, in my opinion, than Senator Obama. He does NOT need on the job training. He has already demonstrated that he makes prescient decisions on foreign policy and on economics. We would be in a different place today had the Senate heeded his call in 2006 about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He acknowledges that we must work to help heal the planet. He clearly has a higher regard for women than does Obama. All of the things you have heard before. Just read the letter, think about it, and vote your conscience.

The media continues its incessant drumbeat to help Barack Obama ascend to the White House. This includes giving him a pass on questions that other candidates have to answer.

This situation was made a little more preposterous by the always entertaining, abusive and seemingly clueless Andrew Sullivan who just made this his daily dish:

Palin’s Medical Records
Still AWOL. No explanation. Not even a gesture, which suggests to me that some in the McCain camp realize they’d rather release nothing than be implicated in anything that might hurt them after the election. Only ABC News’ Kate Snow seems to care. Only this blog has really pursued this story for two long months. For the record, I find the idea that a vice-presidential candidate refuses to either give a press conference or release full medical records as a dreadful precedent for transparency. Obama and Biden and McCain have been pathetic as well. But no one has been as secretive as Palin and no one else has similar strangeness in her medical history. Presumably the records are there and could have been released easily two months ago. Unless there really was no vetting at all and the McCain camp is now covering up its own incompetence as well as preparing to throw her under the bus in a few days’ time.

Sullivan is so ludicrous in his hunt for Governor Palin so as to defy description. And what does he say about Obama/Biden — they have been “pathetic as well”.

Well, no Andrew, they have been disgraceful — as have you and the rest of the pundit class and press for not demanding more of Senator Obama — who is running for the toughest job in the world and, as of this writing, hasn’t had a checkup in nearly two years and has submitted a scant 276 words to explain his medical history for the last 21 years.

Biden, survivor of two brain aneurisms, likewise refuses to release anything.

Sullivan’s statement “some in the McCain camp realize they’d rather release nothing than be implicated in anything that might hurt them after the election” might also be applied to Barack Obama, might it not? What has that man got to hide?

Here’s an idea. Why don’t McCain, Palin, Obama, Biden ALL show up with their medical records AND their birth certificates at the same time in front of ALL the press and we’ll compare notes — I’m sure our good friend Andrew will be the first one to make this request — in the interest of “fairness and transparency.”

Obama is a long time smoker who admitted recently to smoking again on the campaign trail. He has also been a drug user which he himself has admitted in his books. I think Bush was a drug user, too? You see how good he’s worked out in office.

ABC News’ Sunlen Miller reported back on June 10th:

The presumptive Democratic nominee has been open about his smoking past: Once a heavy smoker, he publicly gave up the habit, per his wife’s request, to run for president.

Since quitting, Obama has indicated in the past that he has “fallen off the wagon” but before today was not specific about how recent his smoking was.

The release of a scant one-page summary for 21 years of care brought some criticism to the Obama campaign – especially when compared to the thousands of pages of medical records released by McCain. Obama promised reporters that if there are additional health-related questions, his campaign would make that information available. “In terms of additional records, if there are particular things that people have questions about, then we’d be happy to give that information,” he said.

But the media didn’t ask any more questions. Typical.

Well, Senator Obama, we have some more questions even if the media doesn’t. Obama’s supporters are always complaining about Senator McCain’s age and that Governor Palin is ‘a heartbeat away from the Presidency.’ Well, pardon me, but Barack’s ‘second’ is a 66 year old man who has had two brain aneurisms so that isn’t really very comforting. Obama keeping his health a mystery isn’t comforting either.

In re the 276-word summary submitted by Obama’s physician, Dr. David L. Scheiner, the LATimes’ Scott Martelle reports:

The overview was contained in a one-page letter with no supporting documentation. “With no surgery or hospital stays, this is a complete summary of his doctor visits and medical records for the past two decades,” said campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki.

The brief Obama letter contrasted with Arizona Sen. John McCain’s decision to let a selected group of reporters spend three hours with nearly 1,200 pages of health records last week.

So Senator McCain releases 1200 pages of medical records and from Obama, a once heavy smoker and former drug user, we get 276 words? Senator McCain released his actual birth certificate and Obama’s COLB is … where?

Never mind all the other medical stuff we don’t know about. What we do know is that someone on the planet dies a smoking-related death once every six seconds. More information about his medical history is warranted. From the American Cancer Society:

Each year, a staggering 440,000 people die in the US from tobacco use. Nearly 1 of every 5 deaths is related to smoking. Cigarettes kill more Americans than alcohol, car accidents, suicide, AIDS, homicide, and illegal drugs combined.

Also contained in Dr. Scheiner’s laughable ‘summary’ (which you can read in full here):

His family history is pertinent for his mother’s death from ovarian cancer and grandfather who died of prostate cancer.

“His own history included intermittent cigarette smoking,” David L. Scheiner, M.D. wrote in a letter released to reporters. “He has quit this practice on several occasions and is currently using Nicorette gum with success.”

Well no, he’s admitted to smoking again. Stressful on the campaign trail, no? Just ask Joe Biden. The smoking also doesn’t seem to go with the image of Mr. I-can’t-get-any- arugula-at-Whole-Foods. More do as I say, not as I do.

There is a history of cancer in his family and he has admitted to drug use. And he continues to smoke. Okay.

Additionally, we know nothing about any of Obama’s college records, papers, articles, his state senate records, nothing that might make clear his true political leanings. This is vital because he only spent 143 days in the Senate before deciding to run for the highest office in the land.

Obama panders to everyone and tells a different story to each group he speaks to. No one can be all things to all people. I honestly can’t tell if he is to the left what Neocons are to the right – or if he is a Republican in sheep’s clothing himself. Just as I want to know Obama’s true politics, I want to understand why he is so secretive about everything including his health? .

In contrast Senator McCain has been much more open about this issue, McCain is fit and cancer free:

I think physiologically he is considerably younger than his chronologic age based on his cardiovascular fitness,” Eckstein said in an interview Thursday. ”I got a call from the cardiologist who said that he had not seen anyone that age exercise for that long in a long time.”

McCain has shrugged off the issue [of his age] by highlighting his stamina and strong genes. He has recalled his “rim-to-rim” Grand Canyon hike in 2006; he has campaigned with his energetic mother, age 96.

Like everything else about Senator Obama, his records – of every stripe – are something we are just supposed to take on faith. Who else could get away with this behavior?

Golly gosh, Andrew, why the double standard?

The McCain health-care insurance tax credit may well be one of the most misunderstood proposals of this presidential election. Barack Obama has been ruthless in his attacks. But the tax credit is highly progressive and will provide a powerful incentive for people to purchase health insurance. These features under normal circumstances should endear Democrats to the proposal.

Mr. Carroll served as deputy assistant secretary for tax analysis at the U.S. Treasury. He is now vice president for economic policy at the Tax Foundation, and an executive-in-residence with American University’s School of Public Affairs:

[McCain] would replace the current income tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance with a refundable tax credit — $5,000 for those who purchase family coverage and $2,500 for individual coverage. Mr. McCain would also reform insurance markets to stem the growth in health insurance premiums.

Further, the rather liberal Tax Policy Center stated the McCain proposals will result in a “net tax benefit” of more than $1,200 for an average tax payer. A recent Lewin Group study estimated savings upwards of $1,400 per family, almost three times the savings a family would get under the Obama plan.

What many may not realize is that the federal government already “spends” roughly $300 billion to $400 billion through the tax code to encourage people to pay for their health care through employer-sponsored health insurance. This subsidy takes the form of the exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance from both income and payroll taxes.

Still, some 45 million Americans are uninsured; and the growth in health-care spending continues to outpace the growth in incomes and the economy, which portends further increases in the number of uninsured. The employer-based system itself is eroding. Voters should be wondering whether there is a better approach than this subsidy.

Consider the current exclusion. Its value rises with how much someone spends on health care, and how much of this spending is funneled through employer-sponsored health-care coverage. This creates an incentive for people to purchase policies with low deductibles, or which cover routine spending. These policies look a lot less like insurance and more like prefunded spending accounts purchased through employers and managed by insurance companies. Consider homeowners and auto insurance policies. Do these cover routine spending on cleaning the gutters or tuning up a car?

The subsidy encourages people to buy bigger policies that cover more, and leads to greater health-care spending. Moreover, lower deductibles and coverage of routine spending dulls consumers’ sensitivity to price. Reducing the tax bias should result in insurance that is more focused on catastrophic coverage and less on routine spending.

By replacing the income tax exclusion with a fixed, refundable credit, the McCain proposal reduces the tax bias for large insurance policies. Because the credit is for a fixed amount, regardless of how much you spend on health care, it helps break the link between the existing tax subsidy and how much is spent on health care. This improves incentives in the health-care market by reducing the bias that has contributed to such a high level of health-care spending.

Moreover, the credit provides a powerful incentive for people to purchase insurance. The two tax provisions — the new credit and the repeal of the income tax exclusion — on net provide a substantial tax cut of $1.4 trillion over 10 years. Not only do most Americans receive a tax cut under the McCain proposal, but the tax cut is directed toward low and moderate income taxpayers.

Consumer Reports also offers this description:

Senator McCain, would create a deregulated national insurance market, expand individual coverage, and rely on competition to drive costs down. People with serious health problems could join government-subsidized high-risk pools like those that many states run today.

Both candidates agree on a few issues: both want to speed up adoption of electronic record-keeping systems; they also agree on the need for safety and transparency, speeding up the introduction of generic drugs, making it easier to buy drugs from overseas and on coordination of care for those seeing a variety of specialists.

Otherwise, Senator McCain and Senator Obama have radically different health care proposals, which offer “dramatic reforms for people not on Medicare.” Consumer Reports also offered a review of both:

CR analyzed what could happen to five American households under McCain and under Obama. ‘The cases aren’t statistically representative but do highlight the stark contrasts between the plans.’ The review is pretty well balanced and McCain’s plan seems to closely edge out Obama’s in their scenarios.

Mr. Carroll’s article also includes a chart depicting a family of four which is ‘assumed to purchase a $14,000 health insurance policy.’ The picture is striking in that it contradicts Obama’s public comments about McCain’s proposal:

[The] McCain tax credit for the purchase of health insurance exceeds the value of the current exclusion for all income levels shown. Indeed, it generally provides more resources to purchase health insurance than the existing exclusion. The total subsidy for health care would rise from about $3.6 trillion over 10 years today to roughly $5 trillion under his proposal.

Some of the nation’s top economists in the Treasury Dept.’s Office of Analysis and The Lewin Group, a respected private health-care research outfit, estimated that the McCain credit would increase the number of new insureds by as much as 15 to 21 million people.

It is true that many may no longer get their insurance through their employer, but they will be given the resources to purchase insurance on their own.

Will the insurance that is purchased be a generous plan with first dollar coverage or low deductibles? It is much more likely to be a plan with higher deductibles that is more focused on providing true insurance against catastrophic losses rather than a more generous plan that includes a lot of prepayment for routine and predictable medical expenses. But this is precisely one of the objectives of the policy: to reduce the current tax bias that encourages people to funnel routine health expenses through insurance policies.

Mr. Carroll also address the implications of this proposal on the future of entitlement programs and notes ‘this is perhaps the most important aspect of the proposal.’

There is an enormous unfunded liability associated with … Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. If left unchecked, the growth in these programs will nearly double the size of the federal government by 2040, consuming roughly 40% of the nation’s output rather than the 20% today. While the growth in Social Security is largely the result of demographics, the growth in Medicare and Medicaid is also driven by the rapid growth in health-care spending. This is where a proposal like Sen. McCain’s can be so important.

The elimination of the income-tax exclusion should reduce private health-care spending; to the extent this reduces the cost of health care, it should also put downward pressure on the growth of Medicare and Medicaid costs. Thus, by removing the tax bias for more generous health coverage, the McCain health credit also has the potential to provide important dividends to the entitlement problem down the road.

Certainly, Social Security and Medicare are programs that need to be addressed (and protected) sooner rather than later. It is interesting to note that Mr. Carroll feels Senator McCain has a better inroad into solving that problem.

Health care costs are obscene, no doubt about that. I had a cortisone shot a few months ago that had to be performed in a hospital because my city has no private office with a fluoroscope. This meant a full dress pre-operative preparation. I was in the hospital for a total of one hour and 45 minutes, mostly waiting in a bed. Cost? $5,500 for one shot! I swear to God this is true.

This situation makes health care a red hot campaign issue. Obama focused heavily on this health care plan while denegrating McCain’s modest health care proposal during their second debate.

McCain’s policy, in all honesty, does not solve the underlying problem of soaring costs. But it does provide relief for a lot of people who can use that $5,000 tax credit to help purchase insurance. It may even cause insurance companies to lower rates as they vie for these new customers. But, mostly McCain’s plan has merit because it is actually doable!

Obama’s plan is no more than a campaign promise that will not be kept because it cannot be kept. So, if you are voting for him primarily because of his health plan, think again.

If Presidents could implement national health care, Teddy Roosevelt, Frankin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, John F. Kennedy, and Bill Clinton would have already seen to it that every American had at least some form of basic health care coverage. They all tried. There is even now a national health care bill that has been languishing in Congressional committees since 2003 (HR 676).

The truth is that many other factors must align, and the chances of that happeing anytime soon is about as likely as Ralph Nader winning the presidency by a landslide.

Here are some issues that currently stifle the possibility of having any form of government sponsored National Health Insurance (NHI) in the United States:

1. The complicated way our government makes decisions and does its business, including the ability of the minority (sometimes a single person or a very few people) to stifle the will of the majority, including the American people.

2. Successful lobbying against NHI by powerful for-profit stakeholders (e.g., managed care organizations, insurance companies, and the pharmaceutical industry).

3. The advantages available to the private sector created by our checks-and balances and two-party systems, purposely designed to limit the power and scope of government.

4. A public that polls as wanting NHI but is currently either distrustful of big government or apathetic when it comes to action.

5. Our culture of individualism that resists collective solutions.

6. The continuing (and mostly unspoken in public) prejudice of the working middle-class against supporting with their tax dollars no-cost resources to those they perceive as less deserving (e.g., addicts, loafers, high physical risktakers).

7. The inability of pro-medical care reform activists to agree on a specific proposal, and sometimes actively opposing each other.

8. Unexpected events that interrupt the legislative process (e.g., wars and scandals).

9. Personality clashes and ensuing haggling among the fragmented power players that influence the fate many attempts to reform anything, including health care. (This happens more often that you would think.)

10. Institutional bias that was designed by our founding fathers to pit alliances against each other as a way of protecting minority factions and limiting the power of government to control the individual and individual personal choice.

Some medical historians claim that timing will be the key, and that those rare opportune windows depend on a confluence of forces coming together “just right.” Is there such a window in the near future? Here are factors that must align for NHI to stand a chance. Unfortunately, almost all are nowhere in sight.

1. A unified political landscape. (Things seem less unified than ever right now, even rancorous splits within the two major parties.)

2. Ability of the President to pull people together. (Unfortunately, this campaign has divided people, especially Democrats, with wounds that will fester for some time.)

3. The people become more willing to give government a chance to do something right and competently. (We don’t see any evidence if this yet, in fact skepticism has devolved into cynicism.)

4. The medical establishment realizes that NHI is inevitable, so it is best to join the team to help shape it than to fight it. (This ultimately happened in Canada after years of strife, and it would take a long time for that to happen here, if ever.)

5. A resurgence of working class organizations and unions. (First we need jobs!)

6. Our foreign affairs concerns, if not solved, are stabilized. (This will not happen for a long while, no matter who wins the election.)

7. The economy is on the mend, such as more jobs, less reliance on foreign oil, and do on. (Clearly things are going in the opposite direction.)

8. Continuing advancements in medical science, medical technology, and pharmacological treatments, especially those that are cost-effective and detect early or prevent disease. (We are moving forward, but the wars and the economy has already drastically reduced federal grant funds available for medical research. In addition, the cost of early detection for risks is overwhelming since everyone is at risk for something, but we can’t give everyone every risk test..)

9. Demands for NHI from the majority of powerful social or political groups. (That hasn’t happened.)

10. A weakening of current health care markets, such as an increase in “high profile” criticisms of for-profit managed care operations. (There was a brief period of exposure of the profit-making business of health care, but criticisms, though still valid, have waned.)

11. A rise (or resurgence) in national pride and a return to the exercising of fundamental values such as caring for others. (Most Americans are furious our country’s leadership–and that includes the Democratic congress–and having trouble caring for their own families let along anyone else’s.)

12. Some substantial degree of healing between Democrats and Republicans and so-called red and blue states, or at least a strong bipartisan agreement that NHI must be enacted. (Highly unlikely in the near future.)

13. Meaningful lobby reform, cutting off to some extent powerful interest-group access. (This is far easier said than done.)

14. Public financing of elections, reducing the influence of powerful interests. (McCain is doing it, Obama reversed his promise.)

15. Agreement on the shape/scope of the plan from among various health care reformers. (So far the majorities favoring health care reform have been unable to coalesce around a single plan and are sometimes openly antagonistic towards each other.)

16. A significant external shock, such as skyrocketing health care costs threatening the collapse of our economy, a major health care scandal, a plague or natural disaster or attack that injures large numbers of young and the healthy middle and upper-income Americans, and other unfortunate occurrences that force change. (This is a scary scenario—we pray that this is not the reason we ultimately get NHI.)

In conclusion, McCain won’t solve the problem, but he has a functional plan that should help some people. As for Obama and national health insurance, I wish I could conclude differently, but no. It’s just another promise that cannot and will not be kept.