Where the campaigns are going

While John McCain questions where al Hussein Obama "comes from," and Sarah Palin leads torchlight parades against the camera crew covering her campaign stops, let's take a deep breadth and remember...

Most Americans under 65 currently get health insurance through their employers. That’s largely because the tax code favors such insurance: your employer’s contribution to insurance premiums isn’t considered taxable income, as long as the employer’s health plan follows certain rules. In particular, the same plan has to be available to all employees, regardless of the size of their paycheck or the state of their health.

This system does a fairly effective job of protecting those it reaches, but it leaves many Americans out in the cold. Workers whose employers don’t offer coverage are forced to seek individual health insurance, often in vain. For one thing, insurance companies offering “nongroup” coverage generally refuse to cover anyone with a pre-existing medical condition. And individual insurance is very expensive, because insurers spend large sums weeding out “high-risk” applicants — that is, anyone who seems likely to actually need the insurance.

So what should be done? Barack Obama offers incremental reform: regulation of insurers to prevent discrimination against the less healthy, subsidies to help lower-income families buy insurance, and public insurance plans that compete with the private sector. His plan falls short of universal coverage, but it would sharply reduce the number of uninsured.

Mr. McCain, on the other hand, wants to blow up the current system, by eliminating the tax break for employer-provided insurance. And he doesn’t offer a workable alternative.

I know, I know. Progressive Democrats have lost more elections than I can count during my lifetime on the virtue of their better ideas. But even Nixon knew that you need to mask your lack of ideas with a smile.

One of the things I expect from the debate tonight is McCain revisiting his ideas to "freeze" spending. I hope the moderator, or Obama, asks McCain if he really understands what that means in a time of recession.