Obama, McCain tussle on healthcare

The Barack Obama and John McCain campaigns are going at it hot and heavy over McCain's healthcare plan.

At issue is McCain's proposal to offer a $2,500 tax credit for individuals and $5,000 for families to help them afford private health insurance. That credit would be offset, however, because workers would no longer to be able to exclude from their income taxes the value of the insurance coverage paid by their employer.

Obama calls that a taxing health benefits for the first time -- an assertion that McCain's camp calls an outright lie.

"You see, Senator McCain would pay for his plan, in part, by taxing your health care benefits for the first time in history. And this tax would come out of your paycheck," Obama said Saturday in Newport News, Va. "But the new tax credit he’s proposing? That wouldn’t go to you. It would go directly to your insurance company – not your bank account. So when you read the fine print, it’s clear that John McCain is pulling an old Washington bait and switch. It’s a shell game. He gives you a tax credit with one hand – but raises your taxes with the other."

The Obama campaign followed up with a TV ad making the same argument.

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds responded, “Barack Obama is lying to voters. It’s a bald faced lie because John McCain will improve the tax code so that middle class paychecks aren’t used to pay government bureaucrats but instead will pay for the access to health care Americans deserve. Barack Obama, the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate, has a different plan: higher taxes, a trillion dollars in new spending, and a radical turn toward government-run health care that promises to be as efficient as a trip to the DMV.”

That brought this missive from Obama spokesman Bill Burton, “We understand why John McCain doesn’t want voters to know the full truth about his radical health care plan, which would force at least 20 million Americans out of the health care they rely on, and let insurance companies, not doctors, make key decisions about families’ health. But as Barack Obama said today, John McCain pays for his $5,000 health tax credit by taxing employee health benefits for the first time in history. The bald-faced lie is to suggest anything otherwise."

The Obama camp launched a second ad that went a step further, accusing McCain of wanting to give insurance companies more control over patient care.

"On health care, there are two sides," the announcer says. Barack Obama would require insurance companies to cover routine treatments, like vaccines and mammograms. John McCain would deregulate the insurance giants…letting them bypass patient protections in your state. Obama would force insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions.
McCain would let them continue to do as they please. Isn’t your health care too important to be left to chance?"

McCain's campaign called the ad a false attack.

“On health care there are two sides of this coin: Barack Obama would impose expensive mandates that cost workers jobs, health insurance, penalize parents because they can’t afford insurance for their kids, build a new health care bureaucracy, and expand a bloated government by an unaffordable $250 billion a year. Americans’ paychecks would go to higher taxes that pay the bureaucrats who control their health care. Barack Obama is not being truthful, because John McCain’s plan puts money in the hands of families, preserves their employer coverage and expands new options, and transforms the health care system to provide better care, at lower cost, for every American – that is a fact,” Doug Holtz-Eakin, a senior policy adviser to McCain, said in a statement.

UPDATE: McCain hit back during a speech today in New Mexico.
"On healthcare, Senator Obama has been misleading you about my plan to give you more money for healthcare, and he has been equally misleading about his own plans. He has said his goal is a single payer system where government is in charge of health care and bureaucrats stand between you and your doctor. Under the plan he has proposed, he will fine families that don't have the kind of health insurance that Senator Obama tells them to purchase. He will fine employers who do not offer the health insurance that he thinks they should offer," McCain told supporters.

"What he doesn't say, and what nobody has asked, is how big his fines will be. What he doesn't want you to know is that with a small fine, his plan will encourage companies to just pay the fine, drop existing healthcare coverage for their employees and leave them with only one real option: government run healthcare."