McCain Advisor: Most Won't Want McCain's Health Care Plan

Even the McCain campaign says its health care plan stinks. Senior McCain advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin told CNN that "younger, healthier workers likely wouldn't abandon their company-sponsored plans" for the health care tax credits McCain has been touting.

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

As Holtz-Eakin knows, and as newspaper editorials and economists point out, McCain's $5,000 tax credit for couples falls far short of the cost to replace most workers' employer-provided coverage, especially for older workers who could face annual premium costs of $12,000 or more.

But under McCain's plan, those workers could be out of luck anyway. Because McCain plans to tax employer-based health care benefits, workers would either be paying a fat new tax for their employer-paid health insurance or could lose it altogether. That's because economists believe many employers would stop offering group insurance if McCain's plan became law.