Both presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain are promising to expand healthcare coverage to the 47 million uninsured. But they have different strategies to address this issue. While Barack Obama wants to reduce the number of people without health insurance by creating a government-operated insurance program which would require larger employers to provide coverage for their workers, the Republican presidential nominee says he plans to put an end to tax breaks for health insurances provided by employers and come up with a refundable tax credit of $2,500/person or $5,000/family.

The health insurance would be portable (same as Obama’s plan), which means people won’t lose the insurance coverage when they switch jobs. He would give people a $2,500 tax credit for individuals who buy health insurance and a $5,000 tax credit for families that do so. The tax credit is designed to help people buy insurance through their employer. The subsequent competition would drive the prices lower and encourage improvements in the insurance system, McCain said. “Insurance companies could no longer take your business for granted, offering narrow plans with escalating costs. It would help change the whole dynamic of the current system, putting individuals and families back in charge,” Senator McCain said.

The tax Policy Center estimates McCain’s plan would cost $1.3 trillion but it won’t do much to reduce the number of uninsured because the tax credits wouldn’t be enough to buy even the barest coverage.

Obama’s health care plan includes a “National Health Plan” for people who don’t have employer-sponsored insurance and aren’t eligible for existing government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. Obama would implement a national insurance program through which people and small businesses would be able to purchase health care just as federal employees. He plans to modernize the current system of employer- and government-provided health care, and to make some investments that will lead to a more efficient medical system. He plans to invest more in preventive services, like regular screenings and healthy lifestyle information.

The tax center estimates Obama’s plan would cost $1.6 trillion and it would add an estimated 34 million people to the insurance poll. An analysis published in the Journal Health Affairs suggests that Obama’s promises “would require new, large, and rapidly growing federal subsidies that are unlikely to be sustainable, fiscally or politically.”

Medical economists who criticize the plans of the two presidential candidates say that while Obama’s health plan is too expensive and disruptive, McCain’s plan won’t lower the number of uninsured Americans. A report conducted by the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution showed that Americans believe that Obama’s health care strategy would cut the number of US inhabitants without health insurance by 18 million in 2009, compared to McCain’s strategy, which is believed to reduce the number by 1 million in 2009.

A report released by the Census Bureau found the number of individuals covered by government programs increased from 80.3 million in 2006 to 83 million a year later. The total number of individuals on Medicaid, a cooperative venture that provides medical coverage to eligible needy persons, increased from 38.3 million to 39.6 million. The findings also showed that the private health insurance coverage rate dropped to 67.5 percent of Americans in 2007, from 67.9 percent in 2006. The number of Americans without health insurance dropped with 1.3 million (15.3% from 15.8%), compared to the 12.3 percent of 2006.