One has to attentively analyze what the two candidates have to offer in their programs. John McCain and Barack Obama's health reform plans are different both in their approaches to solving problems and their potential effects on voters.

Republican presidential nominee John McCain, could provide refundable tax credits of $2,500 for individuals or $5,000 for families, for everyone who obtains private health insurance, provide a variety of insurance choices that would not be dependent on a job, work with state governors to increase insurance pools for people uninsurable on the individual market, or eliminate current tax exclusion for employer-paid health insurance.

In other words under McCain's plan, the tax exemption for employer-provided health insurance would disappear, and people would get a tax credit to spend on any health insurance they wish. Another interesting point about McCain's tax credit: You can't get cash for it. To ensure that it goes to health care, the credit is payable directly to insurance companies.

What Barack Obama would do is to provide subsidies for low-income Americans to help them afford coverage, require that all children have health insurance, create a new national health plan, similar to Medicare, for the uninsured and small businesses, require employers to either offer health insurance to employees or pay a tax that would be used to help uninsured people get insurance or regulate private insurance plans to end risk-rating based on health status.

All in all, by 2018, McCain's plan would cost $1.3-billion; Obama's plan would cost $1.6-billion. But the situation is encouraging. ''I don't think there's any question that 2009 is going to be the biggest year ever for healthcare in America,'' says Tommy Thompson, former secretary of Health and Human Services in the George W. Bush administration.