Articlr

In Tuesday night’s presidential debate in Nashville, Tennessee was everything from awkwardly aggressive to downright boring. But when the topic of health care (and health insurance) came up, the candidates had very different and interesting things to say.

The moderator of the debate, Tom Brokaw, questioned each candidate as to whether health care is a right, responsibility or privilege. The first to answer was John McCain. He responded that is was a responsibility.

That’s not a surprising answer from the Republican candidate who wants to reform health care by emboldening the consumer with more health plan choices (i.e. an individual health insurance tax credit) and increasing competition in the private health insurance market (i.e. allowing Americans to buy health plans across state lines).

Barack Obama’s answer was different. Obama replied that health care was a right. This answer was also not surprising, since he believes that all Americans should have access to health care and posess health insurance. Obama likes the idea of universal coverage, but does not propose universal health care.

So the two views we have here are that Senator McCain thinks health care should be up to the consumer. In other words, we should be responsible for our own health care and insurance. Our spin on this belief is that McCain thinks of health care as a commodity. The other view is that Obama thinks otherwise, that health care is a intrinsic right. His critics wonder if this is a ploy to universal health care.