IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: John McCain For The New Hampshire Union Leader: "U.S. Needs Comprehensive, Free-Market Health Care Reform"

"My reforms will make the entire health care system responsive to the needs of the American family and are built on the pursuit of three goals: paying only for quality medical care, having insurance choices that are diverse and responsive to individual needs, and restoring our sense of personal responsibility. -- Sen. John McCain

Excerpts from "U.S. Needs Comprehensive, Free-Market Health Care Reform"
By John McCain
The New Hampshire Union Leader
December 28, 2007

We have an approaching perfect storm in health care, and no one seems to be watching the clouds gather.

More families are without health insurance as premiums increase beyond the affordability of our citizens and their employers. Our safety net programs of Medicare and Medicaid are headed to financial meltdown and draining dollars from critical programs such as education. Our companies cannot continue to compete outside the country because health care costs are so much higher in the United States.

Who among the candidates is speaking honestly to the American people about the problem with the American health care system? Democratic presidential candidates are not telling you these truths. They are running the same old playbook: promise "universal coverage" and everything will be fine.

I offer a genuinely conservative vision for health care reform, which preserves the most essential value of American lives -- freedom.

We should not attempt to substitute government coercion for the right of individuals to decide what is best for them. Our citizens should not pay for the collective sins of a failed health care system. We must use the tools that have served us so well in the past -- competition, American ingenuity and personal responsibility.

My reforms will make the entire health care system responsive to the needs of the American family and are built on the pursuit of three goals: paying only for quality medical care, having insurance choices that are diverse and responsive to individual needs, and restoring our sense of personal responsibility.

Along with changing the practice of medicine by our health professionals, as a nation we must recognize and encourage personal responsibility for health prevention and promotion. We have an epidemic of obesity. Diabetes and high blood pressure will limit and shorten the lives of too many in the next generation. We must again teach the value of good nutrition and exercise to children and parents alike.

While we reform the system and rein in costs, we need to expand access to care to those who have already been squeezed out.

We need innovative insurance options that belong to policy-holders and move with you to new a new job or a new city. We will know we've been successful when you can fire your insurance company, rather than the other way around.

And we need to reform the tax system to allow individuals to deduct the cost of insurance to help level the playing field. In the process, we should make tax credits available for those who cannot afford insurance.

We can build a health care system that is more responsive to our needs and is delivered to more people at lower cost. The engine of our prosperity and progress has always been our freedom and the sense of responsibility for and control of our own destiny that freedom requires. These trusted and time-tested truths will work in health care reform.

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