Democratic National Committee: Affordable Health Care

• Stunning Admission by McCain Camp on Healthcare Plan
  

  John McCain's healthcare plan will "blow up" the employer-based system and healthcare experts are not so hot on that idea.

  Experts, however, fear that eliminating the tax advantage of employer-based coverage would prompt younger, healthier workers to leave their office plans. If that happened, costs for the remaining workers could skyrocket. Companies may drop coverage altogether.

  But the McCain campaign fought back that idea with an even stranger defense:

  Younger, healthier workers likely wouldn't abandon their company-sponsored plans, said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain's senior economic policy adviser.

  "Why would they leave?" said Holtz-Eakin. "What they are getting from their employer is way better than what they could get with the credit."

  Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton on this stunning admission:

  “This morning, the McCain campaign’s top economic policy advisor unleashed an October Surprise of straight talk when he finally admitted that the health insurance people currently get from their employer is ‘way better’ than the health care they would get if John McCain becomes President. Independent studies have shown that under John McCain’s health care plan, at least 20 million Americans will lose the insurance they rely on and be forced to buy health care coverage on the individual market that costs more than $12,000 with a tax credit of just $5,000. Senator McCain has been trying to cover this up for months, but his advisor’s brutal honesty today is certainly better late than never, and it should give every American pause about electing a candidate who has proposed such radical and dangerous changes to our health care system,” said Obama-Biden Spokesman Bill Burton.

• Another Former Republican Senator for Obama
  

  In an op-ed entitled, "My Choice: Obama," printed in the Washington Post this morning, former Maryland Senator Charles Mathias (R) endorsed Senator Barack Obama.

  I believe that Obama's inspirational leadership, contemplative nature and well-reasoned, forward-looking policies offer our troubled nation a real opportunity to face and overcome its many challenges at home and abroad.

  On an array of domestic issues, including health care, education, tax policy, the environment and alternative energy sources, Obama promises a clean break from the recent past and tangible hope for a return to fiscal responsibility, economic security and true environmental stewardship, all of which are essential to restoring our greatness. Now, Obama must be aware of the hopes that he has raised through his discussion of these issues. Many people will rightly take his words as his commitment and will judge him accordingly.

  On the international front, his thoughtful and responsible approach to extricating our troops from Iraq, reallocating our finite resources elsewhere in the war on terrorism, and reviving effective use of our diplomatic corps all warrant our support. To be successful in these endeavors, Obama must be an active student of history. In attempting to bring peace to the Middle East, for example, he should recognize that the United States has played a role in the region since Franklin Roosevelt went to Saudi Arabia to meet with King Abdul-Aziz. Obama must appreciate that he is not writing on an empty page and will need to be sensitive to that which has come before him.

  Obama represents the better choice to successfully address the issues that dramatically affect the health and well-being of our nation today. The fact that he is also a black American adds special significance for me as someone who was witness to and participated in at least a part of the past century's discourse on civil rights.

  Mathias served in the House of Representatives from 1961 until 1969 when he was elected to the U.S. Senate and served until 1987.

• We Can't Afford John McCain
  

• ''Taketh''
  

  Watch the latest ad after Senator Barack Obama handily won last night's second presidential debate.

• $2 Trillion in Retirement Accounts Lost
  

  This afternoon, the Associated Press reported that retirement accounts have lost $2 trillion in the last 15 months.

  Americans' retirement plans have lost as much as $2 trillion in the past 15 months, Congress' top budget analyst estimated Tuesday. [...]

  As Congress investigates the causes and effects of the financial meltdown, the House Education and Labor Committee was hearing from retirement savings and budget analysts on how the housing, credit and other financial troubles have battered pensions and other retirement funds, which are among the most common forms of savings in the United States.

  "Unlike Wall Street executives, America's families don't have a golden parachute to fall back on," said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the panel chairman. "It's clear that their retirement security may be one of the greatest casualties of this financial crisis."

  Yet, John McCain stlil wants to privatize Social Security.

  And while Sarah Palin is in Florida promising that John McCain will "protect' entitlement programs, his economic advisers are telling the press that there will be massive cuts into Medicare and Medicaid. Perhaps she hadn't read in the newspapers her what her campaign wants to do just yet.

• ''The Subject''
  

  We know what kind of game John McCain is going to play tonight at the town hall debate in Tennessee. A top aide recently admitted to the New York Daily News that "If we keep talking about the economic crisis, we’re going to lose."

  But Americans are already losing -- their jobs, their homes and their life savings -- and John McCain doesn't want to talk about that. He would rather lose his integrity than lose an election, and will launch more dishonest attack ads about Senator Barack Obama.

  In his convention speech last August, Senator Obama said, "this isn't about me. It's about you."

  That's what this election is all about -- you -- and John McCain, who is out of ideas, out of touch and running out of time, is desperately trying to change the subject.

  It will not work.

• Howard Dean Releases Health Care Actuality
  

  DNC Chairman Howard Dean released the following radio actuality on the choice voters face this election between four more years of broken Bush-McCain health care policies and the affordable health care plan that would be available to every American under the Obama-Biden plan:

  "Hello, I'm Howard Dean; Dr. Howard Dean. For too long we've been talking about how to reform our health care system. Today, mil