McCain Unveils Healthcare Plan

Republican presidential candidate John McCain unveiled today his proposal for health care reform.

Senator McCain’s plan seeks to overhaul the health care system by curtailing rising costs, boosting consumers’ insurance options and setting standards for care. His proposal differs sharply from most Democrat candidates whose plans, in varying degrees, call for covering more uninsured Americans.

“The biggest problem with the American health care system is that it costs too much, and the way inflationary pressures are actually built into it,” McCain said during a speech to the Des Moines Rotary.

McCain’s proposal calls for promoting generic drugs, supporting retail walk-in clinics, and shifting some care to nurse practitioners, who are cheaper than doctors. McCain’s plan also seeks to establish national standards for measuring treatments and outcomes, allowing consumers to buy health insurance nationwide instead of limiting them to in-state companies, and permitting consumers to buy insurance through an organization they choose.

Additionally, McCain would use Medicare as a lever for pushing change in the rest of the health system by increasing payments for better coordinated care, while cutting payments because of preventable errors and unnecessary hospitalizations.

“My reforms are built on the pursuit of three goals: paying only for quality medical care, having insurance choices that are diverse and responsive to individual needs, and restoring our sense of personal responsibility.”

Polls indicate that health care is the No. 2 issue for voters after the war in Iraq. Several states and cities already have begun to address the issue on their own. According to an October report by Standard & Poor’s analyst Jeffrey Englander, eight states and the cities of New York and San Francisco have either enacted reform, or are proposing some form of health care coverage reform.