Health Care

In the recent memorandum sent out by Obama and his campaign officials, Obama lists the five distinct pitfalls in McCain’s health plan. He begins by pointing out that the extra $5,000 that McCain promises to families in order to help them pay for their insurance is not actually a benefit at all. Because it is said the average American will have to pay $12,000 for their benefits which puts them in a $7,000 hole. And, the extra $5,000, while it sounds good, is said to come from taxes that will be paid by a tax on insurance benefits, which Obama believes will effectively eliminate healthcare coverage for 20 million people. He also believes that it will make it harder for people to get services from cancer screenings to vaccines, as well as failing to address rising health care costs and the rising group of uninsured Americans.

According to fact checkers inside the article, Obama’s attacks are completely wrong. It is said that most American families will not come out in the hole, but will actually end up saving money, at least for the next 10 years. The plan not only helps save Americans money, but it would increase after tax income over middle class Americans while decreasing after tax income to upper class families. While Obama attacks McCain for wanting to do a marginal change in health care, Obama continues to flaunt Universal Health Care for everyone. Which is a more radical change? I think the answer is obvious. I know mud-slinging continues to be a part of every election, but when Obama is planning on completely redoing every aspect of health care, I don’t believe he needs to be calling McCain’s health care plan radical. Health care has gotten out of control and does need a change somewhere, but I just hope that change doesn’t cause a drastic drop in the health care capabilities of this country. We cannot lose the incentive for our doctors and pharmaceutical companies to keep having breakthroughs. Without breakthroughs we would not have the health capabilities we have today, which has seen a great increase in the average life expectancy.