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Don't you get the touching that you have existence possible to already produce the post-election analysis if Obama loses? "A nation still unable to jar its legacy of racism and judgment … a nation so xenophobic about anyone through a foreign-sounding stead could not be elected … Obama could not correct the misimpression that he was a Muslim." It would almost be worth having Obama win to avoid the nauseating analysis that testament certainly come his loss.

But not quite. It is hard to think of any issue dear to the hearts of conservatives on which Barack Obama is not planted firmly on the other side — the rule of diplomacy vis-a-vis aggressors, the proper worry and feeding of teachers unions, the threat of terrorism, affirmative action, the importance of free drive a bargain, immigration become better — I could go on. If elected, President Obama, arm in frith through Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, would be in a position to do serious damage to the country on a number of fronts. His convention speech removed any doubt that he is an sound, pompous — no, huge — polity liberal.

To focus on one important area: Barack Obama could rewrite our health be troubled system. On somewhat number of occasions during the primaries, Obama offered that granting that he were crooked a health care system from scratch, he would choose a single-payer option. But since we've got this employment-based regularity, he has chosen to reform what we have in lieu — or so he claims. Yet if his reforms are enacted, they will drive private security against loss out of the market entirely.

Obama has embraced the "play or defray" concept leading offered by Michael Dukakis. In order to clear up the problem of the 47 million uninsured, Obama would require all but the smallest businesses to either offer health insurance that meets government guidelines, or pay a tax that would science government-provided health security against loss. The Obama plan doesn't offer many specifics but most analysts agree that the Commonwealth Fund's health proposal is nearly identical. It would impose a 7 percent tax. Since the tax would almost certainly be less onerous to employers than expensive soundness care plans, additional and besides businesses would opt in quest of the tax, forcing personal insurers to raise rates even in addition. Once the stampede got going it would be impossible to impediment. The private security against loss market would collapse.

What the U.S. would have soon afterward would be affected much Medicare for everyone — or single payer.

Around the world, single-payer systems keep costs down by rationing care. A Cato Institute study found that in Norway, health care is funded through general tax revenues (taxes consume 45 percent of GDP). But Norwegians commonly excursion off the scent to avoid long waits. "Approximately 280,000 Norwegians are estimated to be expectation for care on any given day (out of a population of just 4.6 million)." In Britain, "delays in receiving treatment are often so long that nearly 20 percent of colon cancer patients considered treatable at the time that first diagnosed are hopeless by the time treatment is finally offered." Even in France, whose system gets to multuous marks from international raters, bureaucratic rigidity contributed to the deaths of 15,000 elderly people in the race wave of 2003.

McCain's health care reforms put the focus in which place it belongs — on increasing market rivalship and consumer choice. It was government that saddled us with this cumbersome employer-based system in the first place (by making contributions to health plans tax deductible for employers during World War II). Though arguably still the best in the world (where do sheiks and princes go when they're really sick?), our system does little to encourage dispensation (due to the third-party payer problem), discourages competition, leaves millions free from coverage because plans are too expensive, discourages do job-work switching, and suffers from needless complexity. McCain's figure would bestow a $2,500 tax exemption to individuals and $5,000 to families to purchase their own insurance. The surplus would go into a hale condition savings reputation. McCain's reform would permit consumers to purchase plans across plight lines, thus increasing competition.

Both plans represent "change." If Obama, Pelosi, and Reid succeed, they may change our health care system for the worse, and permanently.

To find out greater degree about Mona Charen and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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