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Obama backers blast McCain's health care plan

Steven Elbow  —  10/06/2008 4:07 pm

After watching Sen. John McCain's polling numbers sink after the Republican presidential nominee's failed attempt to show leadership in the nation's ongoing financial crisis, Barack Obama's campaign in recent days has sought to further its advantage by going after McCain on another front: health care.

Obama over the weekend blasted McCain's health care proposal as "radical," and the Obama campaign has used surrogates to hammer on the Republican's proposal, which they say will kick 20 million people off their insurance plans -- 415,000 in Wisconsin -- and take away the rights of states to regulate the health insurance industry.

"McCain is offering a plan that in my determination, as well as many others, will be taking steps backward," said U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison, during a conference call interview Monday.

Also Monday, Service Employees International Union announced a new, multistate television advertising campaign along with efforts to target undecided voters through phone calls, canvassing and direct mail, taking McCain to task on his health care plan.

McCain has proposed giving tax credits of $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families to offset the cost of health care. The money would be paid directly to their health insurer.

To pay for the plan, he would tax the health benefits more than 150 million people get through employers as income, which the Obama campaign has labeled the first tax ever on health care.

"The individuals and families in many cases end up paying much more in taxes than they'll get by way of benefit from this plan," Baldwin said.

In addition, McCain's plan would allow people to take their health insurance across state lines, but it would remove the requirement that insurers be licensed in the state in which they do business.

Karen Pollitz, research professor at Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute, recently explained it this way to insideARM, an online financial news site:

"He would let insurance companies shop around for one state they can pick and that is the state that would regulate them no matter where they sell. All other states would be secondary. Expect to see a spike in uncompensated care. Sick people will be left uninsured or underinsured."

Baldwin said the deregulation would gut Wisconsin's ability to mandate reviews of denial of care, breast and cervical cancer screenings, mandatory coverage of child vaccinations, coverage of diabetes care, and a host of other regulations imposed by Wisconsin and other states.

"Wisconsin folks would lose all of the particular protections that Wisconsin has mandated over the years to reign in the excesses of insurance companies," Baldwin said.

McCain campaign spokeswoman for the Great Lakes regions Sarah Lenti called Baldwin's criticisms "ridiculous."

"Nobody's going to lose their health care under McCain's plan," she said. "They're trying to shoot us politically, and it's just not fair or correct."

She said McCain's plan improves access to health care and lowers the cost.

"The key to health care reform under John McCain's plan is to restore control to the patients themselves," she said. "We want a health care system where everyone can afford and acquire the treatment and preventative care they need. He believes health care should be available to all, and not limited by where you work or how much you make."

She said McCain's plan "reforms the tax code so families have more choices by providing a refundable tax credit."

And she dismissed the assertion that states would lose their ability to regulate insurers.

"Look at McCain's record over the last 26 years," she said. "He is a states' rights man. That's where the Republican party stands. We're not the socialist government kind where we dictate you do what we say."

Steven Elbow  —  10/06/2008 4:07 pm