Obama's Health Care Claim Debunked

For the third consecutive day, the Obama campaign has been called out for distorting Sen. John McCain's position on an issue for political gain. Earlier this week, Factcheck.org called Sen. Obama's claim that McCain's support for private accounts within Social Security would have cost current retirees their savings, "untrue." McClatchy newspapers called Sen. Obama's attempt to tie McCain's historic support for deregulation to the financial turmoil on Wall Street, "wrong." Now, Factcheck.org returns to call Sen. Obama's most recent campaign advertisement on the Wall Street situation, "misleading."

The ad, titled, "Article," takes a partial quote from a piece Sen. McCain wrote for the current issue of Contentions magazine, and according to Factcheck.org, "twists" McCain's words out of context. The ad mentions one phrase from the article and applies it to the health care issue, attempting to tie McCain's health care policy to the financial turmoil on Wall Street. "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.'"

Factcheck points out that the full quotation from McCain's piece makes it clear that he was speaking about letting consumers purchase health insurance across state lines, a move that would certainly open up competition in the market, with the likely result of lowering costs.

"I would also allow individuals to choose to purchase health insurance across state lines, when they can find more affordable and attractive products elsewhere that they prefer. 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. Consumer-friendly insurance policies will be more available and affordable when there is greater competition among insurers on a level playing field. You should be able to buy your insurance from any willing provider-the state bureaucracies are no better than national ones. Nationwide insurance markets that ensure broad and vigorous competition will wring out excess costs, overhead, and bloated executive compensation."

The McCain campaign responded to the Obama ad by noting that the banking deregulation that McCain was referring to in the article was a 1995 law that allowed customers to use ATMs nationwide and had nothing to to with the current market troubles. "If Barack Obama thinks that today's financial troubles were caused by policies which allowed Americans to use an ATM anywhere in this country, then it is better that he continue to be silent about solutions to the crisis on Wall Street."

All the negativity from the Obama campaign in recent days has taken Sen. Obama badly off message. It is a sign of nervousness that the Obama campaign is focusing so much of its energy on attacks, and so little on issues that Sen. Obama wants voters to associate with him. After complaining for most of the summer that McCain's advertisements were misleading, distorting, or outright lies, the Obama campaign has become what it despised. In the process it has shown itself to be a political campaign just like so many others before it, not a vehicle for changing politics.