Health Care Spin

Those reviewing Obama's plan – two unpaid advisers to the McCain campaign and a scholar with the conservative American Enterprise Institute – raised questions about the cost of the plan and said the number of the uninsured "will not materially decline." They concluded that "[h]eavy regulation coupled with a fallback National Health Plan and a play-or-pay financing choice also raise questions about the future of the employer insurance market."

Another set of studies by a group called Health Systems Innovations was prepared specifically for the McCain campaign and says his plan would cover more of the uninsured than Obama's.

Obama-Biden Ad: "One Word"
Obama: I'm Barack Obama and I approve this message.

Announcer: On health care, John McCain promises a tax credit. But here's what he won't tell you: McCain would impose a new tax on health benefits, taxing your health care for the first time ever.

It's a multi-trillion dollar tax hike. The largest middle-class tax increase in history. You won't find one word about it on his Web site. But the McCain tax could cost your family thousands. Can you afford it?

What the Ads Say
The candidates' ads only add to the confusion – each side straining to paint the other as risky and disruptive. Each side has made false statements about the other.

One Obama ad charges that McCain's plan would be "the largest middle-class tax increase in history." That's simply not true. The ad, titled "One Word," cites a New York Timesarticle from May 1 that says nothing of the sort.

The Obama campaign's calculations look only at the tax that workers would pay on the value of employer-sponsored health benefits without accounting for the tax credit workers would receive. The Times article said that "the elimination of the [income tax] exclusion would generate $3.6 trillion over 10 years, according to the McCain campaign." The $3.6 trillion, the Obama camp reasons, would be the largest tax increase in history. But for most Americans, the increased tax bill would be more than offset by McCain's tax credits.

Only those in high tax brackets or with very high-priced plans would pay more in taxes than they'll get with McCain's credit. The Times article says some middle-income workers "conceivably" could pay more if they live in regions where insurance costs are unusually high. But most would come out winners.

It's true that experts say over time, as health premium costs rise — and they've done so faster than inflation, to which the credit is indexed — the credit won't be sufficient to cover health care taxes some workers will face. But those are workers in higher income brackets. The Tax Policy Center report shows that by 2018, the top 40 percent of income earners would see their taxes increase on average.