McCain Health Care Article Fuels Debate Over Economy - Essay Example

This sounds like pie in the sky rhetoric to many economists. Insurance companies are driven by competition; therefore they act in their own self-interest. The interest of the insurance company is to ensure as many healthy people as possible so they don't need to respond to insurance claims from the insured. Covering someone with a pre-existing condition, such as cancer is not in the best interest of the insurance company, no matter how much competition is introduced into the industry (Krugman).

Also troubling is McCains ideological methodology for implementing increased competition, namely, decreased regulation. During the height of the campaign to be elected president, John McCain published an article in a magazine called Contingencies, which is published by the American Academy of Actuaries. McCain actually writes in the article that he would follow a similar course in deregulating the health care sector of the economy in much the same manner as we have deregulated the financial sector.

Having the article published in the midst of the Wall Street meltdown makes McCains anti-regulation ideology seem dated and out of touch (Balz). After the Wall Street meltdown and the catastrophic failure of the market to regulate itself, proposing a free-market solution to health care simply because it introduces competition sounds naïve, economically speaking.