A Return to Presidential Politics in Health Insurance

Welcome to this installment of the Weekly Health Insurance News Roundup. In this issue we take a look, once again, at the politics of both presidential candidates in how they relate to health insurance and health care. With the election closing upon us, media outlets are spending a lot of time picking apart the various platforms of both candidates, including health care and health insurance. This is what we’ll be taking a look at in this issue.

A fairly balanced article from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel entitled, “Candidates’ plans for health care reform vary greatly,” takes a look at the pro’s and con’s of both candidates’ plans. The article takes a well-rounded look at each candidate’s health plan and looks at what could work and what’s troubling. While both candidates agree that our health insurance and health care systems are in need of reform, each candidate takes a fairly different view on how it should be done.

According to the article, the McCain plan’s tax credits would cost less than Obama’s plan in the long run, but might encourage employers to drop health coverage for their employees in favor of them paying for their own insurance using the tax credits provided by the McCain administration. McCain’s plan is also largely untested and is criticized as favoring younger people who would pay less than older people. Obama’s plan, the article says, is more ambitious and costly, but also more detailed and a better fit for this country since it’s based on an existing health insurance framework. The downside of Obama’s plan is that it will be more expensive in the long run than McCain’s plan.

The problem with finding these articles is that so few of them are balanced like this article above. In trying to find more articles that took a more balanced viewpoint of both candidates health insurance plans, this one article is all I was able to find. Other articles took one side or the other, which isn’t what this series is about. While I have my personal political viewpoints, I’d never want them to color this article, so this is where I’ll end this issue of the Roundup. I hope you enjoyed it, and we’ll see you next time.

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• Video: A Return to Presidential Politics in Insurance
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