McCain's Health Plan: Obama Lies

Note: The following material is from Doug Holtz-Eakin, McCain-Palin 2008 Senior Policy Adviser. The piece is entitled "Obama's Lies on Health Care." This will be part of a several part series comparing Sen. McCain's rational health care plan with Obama's government-dominated, high-cost variety.

Across the country, Barack Obama is attacking the McCain health plan with ads that are cynical and deceitful. Unfortunately, these attacks will not stop by a mere presentation of the facts. Barack Obama has now made a deliberate decision to lie about John McCain's health care plans with the realization that no one in the media will actually call him on it. Barack Obama's attacks are not grounded in the facts.There are significant and legitimate policy differences between John McCain and Barack Obama that voters should clearly understand. We do suspect this will be difficult to accomplish, as we've seen that pinning down Barack Obama's policy positions is like debating the protégé of John Kerry.

He has changed his tax plans nearly weekly to disguise his most basic intention to raise taxes during a recession. He has played games with NAFTA and international trade to disguise his belief that opening foreign markets to American workers is not good. He has been on both sides of the Second Amendment in an effort to disguise his fundamental anti-Second Amendment positions. He has displayed a willingness to say anything in order to be elected president including deriding basic American values at a San Francisco fundraiser in order to raise campaign cash while traveling to diners in Pennsylvania telling us how much he cherishes small-town values.

Now, Barack Obama's attention has turned to health care where he demonstrated yesterday that he will say anything to distract the American people away from his basic intention to force millions of Americans to accept government-run health care. He will say anything in order to sell the American people on the fact the very same government he supposedly wants to change is the government he wants to determine their health care benefits. Please find below the facts about Barack Obama's health care plan:

· Barack Obama's Plan Continues The Push Towards Government-Run Health Care: The Obama plan will create a brand new government-run health plan at the cost of $243 billion a year – a financial burden of more than $3,000 a year on American families.[1] The apparent goal is a complete government takeover of the health care system:


"If I were designing a system from scratch, I would probably go with a single-payer system." – Barack Obama, Speech in Albuquerque, NM, 8/18/08

"The goal, like HillaryCare in the 1990s, is to displace current private coverage and switch people to the default government option. What's new is Mr. Obama's smoother political packaging." – "Obama's Health-Care Tipoff," Wall Street Journal Editorial, 8/21/08

"Obama's plan, with its heavy reliance on government, leads to the same problems that bedevil universal health care systems all over the world: limited patient choices and rationed care." – Michael Tanner, "A Fork in the Road – Obama, McCain and Health Care," 7/29/08

· Barack Obama's Plan Will Harm Employer Coverage: The Obama plan includes a $179 billion a year employer mandate.[2] The mandate requires employers to either provide "meaningful" coverage or pay a tax towards the government plan.[3]

Faced with tough economic conditions and rising health costs this creates a clear incentive for employers to drop coverage and move families into the new government plan. A Lewin Group study which examined a similar employer mandate combined with a national plan, like the Obama plan, concluded that almost 52 million individuals would lose their private employer coverage.[4] To maintain their competitive edge, others employers will follow - spelling the demise of the employer coverage system.

[1] Roger Feldman et al. "Impact of Barack Obama 2008 Health Reform Proposal," HSI Network, LLC., 8/21/08

[2] Roger Feldman et al. "Impact of Barack Obama 2008 Health Reform Proposal," HSI Network, LLC., 8/21/08

[3] http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/issues/HealthCareFullPlan.pdf, Accessed 10/3/08

[4] http://www.sharedprosperity.org/hcfa/lewin.pdf, Accessed 10/3/08