When health care attacks

From today's story on the Democratic "barons" who are holding Obama's agenda hostage.

Mr. Baucus, a veteran of 34 years in Congress, has welcomed Mr. Obama’s determination to overhaul health care this year. But he also has been drafting his own plan to contain costs and expand insurance coverage, putting him in potential conflict not only with the White House, but also with Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts and the chairman of the Senate health committee.

For instance, Mr. Baucus has suggested that one way to raise money would be to tax as income the value of the health insurance some employees get on the job, an approach Mr. Obama attacked when Senator John McCain, his Republican rival for the presidency last fall, proposed it.

C'mon. I know "nuance" is hard, but please. Obama didn't "attack" McCain's proposal to tax as income employer-provided health care. He attacked McCain's proposal to tax as income employer-provided health care and in return, offer only a $5,000 tax credit for families to buy health insurance on their own. In other words, McCain proposed taxing our benefits and, basically, giving us no reliable source of health care in return, throwing us to the vagaries of the market and pre-existing conditions.

Obama on Saturday during a campaign event in Newport News, Va., criticized the McCain health care proposal, which he said would prompt employers to drop health insurance for employees and leave millions of U.S. residents without coverage (New York Times, 10/5). According to Obama, the proposal is "so radical, so out of touch with what you're facing and so out of line with our basic values" (Katz, New York Daily News, 10/5).

The proposal amounts to "pulling an old Washington bait-and-switch," Obama said, adding, "He gives you a tax credit with one hand -- but he raises your taxes with the other." He said that, although the proposal would provide refundable tax credits of as much as $5,000 for families to purchase health insurance, family coverage on average costs $12,680 annually, according to the annual employer survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research and Educational Trust (Reston/Mehta, Los Angeles Times, 10/5). Obama said that "like those ads for prescription drugs, you've got to read the fine print to learn the rest of the story" about the proposal (McCormick, Chicago Tribune, 10/5). He also criticized a proposal by McCain to allow residents to purchase health insurance across state lines. Obama said, "Insurance companies will rush to set up shop in states with the fewest protections for patients" (Los Angeles Times, 10/5).

It will be interesting to see if reporters covering the health care debate will fall to the right of Republicans on the issue.