With the presidential campaigns nearing the end and the elections on November 4, 2008 approaching, both candidates for president of the United States have come to play their last card: the reformation of the U.S. health care system.

While Democrat Barack Obama aims at convincing more people to sign up for employer-based health care, his counter-candidate John McCain has his mind and his plan set on doing the exact opposite, by trying to make people switch from employer-based health care to individual health-care plans. His project seeks to replace the government’s subvention for employers with tax credit that would enable them to pay for health-care coverage.

The latter presidential nominee’s revision of the United States health care system entails taxing health benefits the same way salaries are now taxed, the fee not being requested in case the person chooses an individual plan.

Obama, on the other hand, targets medium and large companies where paying taxes is concerned, asking them to pour money into a fund for the uninsured if they do not wish to provide their employees with health-care coverage.

Since the two plans clash, it comes as no surprise that the two candidates lash. At each other, of course.

Consequently, Obama deems McCain’s health-care plan as being a total failure on all accounts, stating that the credit would not actually go to the person who purchases coverage, but to the latter’s insurance company.

Moreover, Joseph Biden, a senior United States Senator from Delaware who has been nominated by the Democratic Party to run for vice-president of the U.S., reckons that the replacement the Republican proposes would result in a major tax increase. Nevertheless, analysis has revealed that the only increase McCain’s plan would give rise to was one in the number of insured Americans.

In addition, many seem to think the GOP nominee’s plan, although radical, is exactly what the system needed, since employer-based health care has managed to drive it to a standstill.

The current health-care system’s main flaws: discriminating against self-employed people, not offering employees the possibility to search for the best prices and benefits and putting people off changing their jobs.

As for Obama’s plan, critics say that it would come to give the government an unfair and at the same time undesired advantage over private insurers, because the former is capable of instating price controls and thus cutting costs. As a result, the number of companies choosing to offer coverage would rise over the years, leaving the issues mentioned above unresolved.

John McCain’s plan entails offering a $2,500 tax credit for individuals and $5,000 one for families in order to help them get coverage. Still, the $5,000 is estimated to be a rather small amount where families below the middle-class income threshold are concerned.

HSI Network has conducted research that has revealed McCain’s plan would provide coverage to 27.5 million uninsured Americans, which is two million more than the number of people Obama’s health-care plan would accomplish to offer coverage to.