Obama Takes On McCain's Health-Care Prescription

We've seen what Bush-McCain policies have done to our economy. Now John McCain wants to do the same to our health care. McCain just published an article praising Wall Street deregulation. Said he'd reduce oversight of the health insurance industry, too. Just "as we have done over the last decade in banking." Increasing costs and threatening coverage. A prescription for disaster. John McCain. A risk we just can't afford to take. Analysis: This Barack Obama commercial is based on John McCain's own words, although those words are subject to interpretation. An article in the obscure journal Contingencies, published under McCain's name, says: "Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous, nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation." In the article, the Arizona senator certainly sounds like the strong advocate of deregulation he has always been. And the timing makes McCain sound like he is defending the loosening of federal rules on banks, now widely blamed for the Wall Street turmoil that has led President Bush to propose a $700 billion bailout of the banking and credit industries. The McCain camp contends that the Republican nominee was referring only to the regulatory change that allowed banks to operate across state lines. But because the article does not specify what he has in mind, McCain leaves himself vulnerable to the charge that he endorsed the full sweep of banking deregulation. There is no evidence that McCain is "threatening coverage" for health care, and the "prescription for disaster" verdict is credited to the Boston Globe. The ad doesn't say it is from the paper's liberal editorial page. For the spot to cite the "Bush-McCain policies" ignores the fact that McCain has broken with the president on some issues. In fact, he has blamed the administration for allowing the banking crisis to develop and proposed a different solution. Every recent Obama ad has either mentioned or pictured the unpopular president. By using the article to remind voters of McCain's past support for deregulation, the commercial tries to paint him as partially responsible for the Wall Street meltdown, even though congressional Democrats did little to change the policies.