ON THE TRAIL

The Associated Press; McClatchy Newspapers

April 30, 2008

Republican John McCain wants to change how Americans get their health insurance, shifting away from job-based coverage to an open market where people can choose from competing policies. McCain said yesterday that he would offer families a $5,000 tax credit to help buy insurance. Everyone would get the credit, even if they have a policy through an employer. "You simply choose the insurance provider that suits you best," McCain said in a speech in Tampa, Fla. "The health plan you chose would be as good as any that an employer could choose for you." To pay for the tax credit, McCain would eliminate the tax exemption for people whose employers pay a portion of their coverage, raising an estimated $3.6 trillion in revenues, aides said. Democratic rival Hillary Clinton said under McCain's plan, millions of Americans would lose their health care coverage through their jobs. "The McCain plan eliminates the policies that hold the employer-based health insurance system together, so while people might have a 'choice' of getting such coverage, employers would have no incentive to provide it," she said. A spokesman for Democrat Barack Obama said McCain was "recycling the same failed policies that didn't work when George Bush first proposed them and won't work now." --The Associated Press

North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley doesn't have a powerful state organization nor is he a national political figure. But Easley's endorsement of Hillary Clinton yesterday could help the Democratic presidential candidate in her quest for more traditional, rural, small town, blue-collar Democrats in North Carolina's primary on Tuesday. Easley was elected to office as a pistol-packing former prosecutor. "Easley probably appeals to more conservative Democrats, to the blue-collar voters that Hillary Clinton has been targeting," said Steven Greene, a North Carolina State University political science professor. But Greene said he thought Easley's endorsement would have only a modest effect, noting that public opinion polls suggest that Illinois Sen. Barack Obama has a double-digit lead in the state.

- McClatchy Newspapers