McCain's startling proposal

Some overworked and underpaid editor at something called "Newsoxy.com" managed to get nearly everything wrong in providing a synopsis of a well-written piece there. He or she wrote:

John McCain wants to bring healthcare costs under control by actively allowing companies to compete around the world.

While I wouldn't put it past McCain to suggest that U.S. companies be "actively allowed" to compete around the world (huh?), a read of the story reveals that this poor editor garbled the last paragraph here:

Other rich similar industrial nations that offer universal care spend only 11 to 12 percent of their gross domestic product on healthcare. Canada spends even less, a bit more than 9 percent of GDP, on a single-payer government insurance system for all its people.

Healthcare advocates say an ambitious change in the United States healthcare system has become an economic necessity, not just a social desire to offer the service to all Americans.

Regina Herzlinger, an expert at the Harvard Business School in Cambridge, Mass. says that the business community bears for 55 percent of the nation's total health costs, the government just 45 percent. Moreover, many businesses eventually want to get rid of their health costs altogether.

"Bringing costs under control is the only way," Sen. John Mccain said on his website, "allow our companies to effectively compete around the world."

Unfortunately, McCain thinks the way to get costs under control is via insurance companies competing with less regulation and more tax breaks. That's worked so well already, after all.