Understanding the candidates' health care plans may seem almost as difficult as convincing your insurer to pay for an annual physical. And it's not made any easier when Obama and McCain misrepresent each other's proposals. We found an Obama ad perpetrating the whopper that McCain's plan contains the "largest middle-class tax increase in history." It's true that McCain would, for the first time, require workers to pay federal income tax on the value of their employer-provided health insurance. But that's offset by the tax credits he'd provide of up to $2,500 per individual and $5,000 per couple or family – and most people would come out ahead.
But the McCain campaign and Republican National Committee have gone after Obama's plan with a gigantic deception of their own, which they offered in a radio ad we dissected. Obama would "rob 50 million employees of their health coverage," the ad says. We flagged that statement for grossly mischaracterizing an analysis of a plan that wasn't even Obama's. In reality, two prominent studies found that Obama's plan would produce a net increase in the number of employees with health coverage through their jobs. Under McCain, according to the same studies, there would be a net decrease. In addition, McCain has repeatedly said that Obama wants to "take over the health care of America," as he said in the third debate between the candidates. "[H]is object is a single-payer system." That's not true, either. While the Democrat has remarked that he'd probably favor a single-payer design if he were building a health care system from scratch, he's said several times that at this point, it makes more sense to improve what's currently in place – and that's what his plan would aim to do. FactCheck.org
46 million people have no healthcare benefits, in the richest country on Earth.