McCain's plan embraces individually purchased insurance (as opposed to group-pooling), with a plan to TAX employer-paid health insurance premiums. This new tax will be offset, in the plan, by  a tax credit of $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families. The idea is that people without health insurance can use this credit to buy health insurance on the individual market. However, the average cost of health insurance for a family is $12,000/yr (if people can even get insurance, which can be near-impossible with pre-existing conditions). It is unlikely, therefore, that this credit will significantly expand coverage.

For most people with insurance, the plan initially will be a wash--no change in expenditures. Over time, however, if the tax credit does not keep pace with rapidly increasing costs of healthcare (on average a minimum of 3% increase/year), spending on healthcare will INCREASE for most families.

Finally, the plan does nothing to help individuals and families with limited coverage; in fact, it encourages limited coverage (for example, catastrophic-only insurance).

As explained in the article:

Most uninsured Americans would probably remain uninsured under the McCain plan. Given the high price of health insurance, even with the new tax credits, many lower-income people would still not be able to afford coverage. And if the credits are not indexed to the rate of growth in health care spending, that affordability gap would grow over time (as would the number of Americans who would pay higher taxes for employer-sponsored health insurance). Indeed, with the proposed credits, many Americans could afford only high-deductible insurance policies. The McCain plan could consequently trigger a move from comprehensive insurance toward thinner coverage policies that shift costs onto sicker patients. Moreover, some employers, particularly smaller businesses, might stop offering insurance if the tax benefits of employer-sponsored insurance were eliminated. As a result, some currently insured workers could lose coverage.

Perhaps the most serious problem with McCain's plan is its reliance on the individual insurance market. Individual insurance policies are administratively expensive, typically involve medical underwriting so that sick persons and those with preexisting conditions are charged higher premiums (premiums also increase with age) or are denied coverage altogether, and generally offer less comprehensive benefits than employer-sponsored insurance.

President Bush made a similar pitch in last year's State of the Union.

Following in Bush's footsteps, McCain promotes more of the same: huge profits to the insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies with limited or no coverage for millions of citizens. How is that change?