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Eye on Ohio: Obama ‘Coin’ ad
By Jessica Wehrman Dayton Daily News
THE AD: “Coin,” 30 seconds.
PRODUCER: The Obama-Biden campaign
WHERE TO SEE IT: Key states across the country.
SCRIPT: Barack Obama: I’m Barack Obama and I approve this message.
Announcer: On health care, there are two sides. Barack Obama would require insurance companies to cover routine treatments, like vaccines and mammograms. John McCain would deregulate the insurance giants … letting them bypass patient protections in your state. Obama would force insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions. McCain would let them continue to do as they please. Isn’t your health care too important to be left to chance?
VIDEO: The image begins with a shot of Obama meeting with a couple. It then flips to a shot of a dime flipping through the air. The coin then shows an image of Obama with the words “cover routine treatments like mammograms.” Then the image in the coin becomes a black and white shot of McCain. Text on the screen reads: “McCain: Let Insurance Giants Bypass Patient Protections. The image shifts to one of Obama meeting with people, and the text on the screen reads: “Obama: Cover Pre-existing Conditions.” Then the image shifts again to McCain, this time with President Bush. The text is “McCain: Let Insurance Companies Deny Coverage.” The video concludes with a shot of the dime dropping.
ANALYSIS: The fight over deregulation has moved from banks to health care, with Barack Obama reviving an argument that McCain’s health care proposals would be akin to the now heavily-criticized deregulation of the banking industry.
Obama’s aim with this ad is to paint McCain as out-of-touch on an issue that is important for most Americans, and he paints McCain as letting insurance companies wreak havoc through deregulation while Obama would require insurance companies to do more.
McCain has argued for opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous competition and offering more choices by loosening state-based regulation. His plan would give families up to $5,000 in tax credits to buy insurance but would begin taxing the value of health benefits that people get through work.
Obama has criticized the approach as a “shell game” that gives and takes tax money.
Obama’s health care plan, meanwhile, would aim for universal coverage through a mixture of private and expanded public insurance. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, he would require employers to offer “meaningful” coverage or contribute a percentage of payroll towards the costs of a public plan. Small businesses would be exempt. Obama would require all children to have health insurance.
Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, said Obama’s approach would force employers to have to find a way to offset added costs, including by raising prices, lowering wages or reducing future wage increases. He also criticized his plan as locking employers further into an employment based health insurance system at a time when “we should be moving in the opposite direction.”
But Obama supporter and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, in a conference call with reporters, argued McCain’s plan would “dismantle state-based regulation and tie the hands of those involved in consumer protection,” and suggested that deregulation of health care would lead to the same troubles that the deregulated banking industry now faces.
McCain’s campaign, unsurprisingly, disagrees. They argue Obama’s plan is a big-government solution that would do little more than stretch an already-stretched federal budget and create a cumbersome new bureaucracy.
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By John McSame
October 14, 2008 7:32 PM | Link to this
PlainMcSame.org Ejoy and don’t forget to poke the elephant!