With John McCain making health care a campaign theme during the past week, there's obviously been a ton of coverage in new media and old about both the proposed changes to the system and the politics of reform. The L.A. Times today has one of the clearest overviews, outlining the big picture differences between the Republicans and Democrats. It also tries to capture how the two approaches would evolve over the long-haul—not just what health care could look like if/when reform is passed but what is likely to occur in the ensuing years. It points out that the McCain plan in particular creates what New America's health policy director Len Nichols is quoted in the article as calling a "Wild West of competition." The fear is that McCain's approach and the amount of his tax credits would leave many people with only bare bones insurance policies. Not much use if you get sick—as The New York Times reminded us this Sunday in a piece on the medical costs insured families can still face when they are underinsured (which they often don't know until the bills pile up). And of course the critics of the Barack Obama/Hillary Clinton approach say it is too "Big Government."

Of course, the LA Times article by pointing out the ways in which the two parties are at polar opposites on health care comes back to the point we make frequently: reform won't happen without more bipartisan conversation, trade-offs, and middle ground. (Which exists—even McCain and the two Democrats have some points of agreement on how we should move away from the fragmented way in which we deliver care.)

P.S. The LA Times piece was by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar who wrote a great article last fall on how several Republicans, then still seeking their party's presidential nomination, wouldn't be able to get insurance under their own health proposals because of their cancer history. He wrote that long before we began this blog, but here's a belated link in case you missed it.