Every advanced nation - except America - provides universal medical insurance for all citizens. Shamefully, the United States leaves 45 million "working poor" people at risk, unprotected against illness and injuries, forced to seek charity care.

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama would end this travesty by creating all-inclusive national coverage. But GOP nominee John McCain has a bizarre plan to deregulate health insurance and charge workers income tax on coverage they receive through employers, in an attempt to force them to seek private policies. The Boston Globe calls his proposal a "prescription for disaster."

Writing in the journal Contingencies, McCain said: "Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation."

Incredible. Deregulation of banking has dragged America into a financial nightmare - and McCain wants the same for medical coverage? David Snow of Medco, America's largest manager of prescription benefits, said in a National Press Club speech that McCain's plan "will create chaos." Insurance expert Robert Laszewski said that charging income tax on employer coverage would cause healthy workers to drop their workplace insurance, leaving employers stuck with older, less-healthy workers. As a result, most companies "would stop paying for health care in three to four years."

The Globe said McCain "has endorsed a right-wing ideologue's vision: Destroy employer-based coverage and turn Americans over to the tender mercies of private nongroup insurers in an unregulated environment. It's a prescription for disaster."

Meanwhile, four medical research experts from the University of Michigan, Columbia, Purdue and Harvard wrote in Health Affairs:

"McCain's proposal to deregulate this market would mean that people in would lose protections they now have. These changes would diminish the security of coverage for most Americans, especially those who are not - or someday will not be - in perfect health."

His plan would completely eliminate health insurance for 20 million people - about one of every eight people who now have job-based health coverage, the study predicts. It would "raise costs, reduce the generosity of benefits and leave people with fewer consumer protections."

These losses would come despite McCain's plan to give a refundable tax credits for health insurance of $2,500 to single workers and $5,000 to families.

Steve White, executive director of the Affiliated Construction Trades Foundation based in Charleston, believes McCain's plan would reduce the wages of a typical West Virginia construction worker by $1 an hour.

About 60 percent of Americans, 180 million people, get health insurance through employers. Current federal tax subsidies to employers encourage them to provide the same coverage to skilled and unskilled workers and to pool risks by keeping younger, healthier workers in the same insurance pools with older workers.

New York Times columnist Bob Herbert criticized McCain's notion that "naked competition" can solve all economic problems. "We're seeing in the Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch fiascos just how well the unfettered marketplace has been working," he wrote. McCain's plan would cut government regulations, let markets control everything, and "send unsophisticated consumers into the crucible," Herbert added.

America needs a national single-payer insurance system that would cut medical costs drastically. By trying to help commercial insurers reap fat profits, the McCain plan would be a stride in the wrong direction.

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama would end this travesty by creating all-inclusive national coverage. But GOP nominee John McCain has a bizarre plan to deregulate health insurance and charge workers income tax on coverage they receive through employers, in an attempt to force them to seek private policies. The Boston Globe calls his proposal a "prescription for disaster."

Writing in the journal Contingencies, McCain said: "Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation."

Incredible. Deregulation of banking has dragged America into a financial nightmare - and McCain wants the same for medical coverage? David Snow of Medco, America's largest manager of prescription benefits, said in a National Press Club speech that McCain's plan "will create chaos." Insurance expert Robert Laszewski said that charging income tax on employer coverage would cause healthy workers to drop their workplace insurance, leaving employers stuck with older, less-healthy workers. As a result, most companies "would stop paying for health care in three to four years."

The Globe said McCain "has endorsed a right-wing ideologue's vision: Destroy employer-based coverage and turn Americans over to the tender mercies of private nongroup insurers in an unregulated environment. It's a prescription for disaster."

Meanwhile, four medical research experts from the University of Michigan, Columbia, Purdue and Harvard wrote in Health Affairs:

"McCain's proposal to deregulate this market would mean that people in would lose protections they now have. These changes would diminish the security of coverage for most Americans, especially those who are not - or someday will not be - in perfect health."

His plan would completely eliminate health insurance for 20 million people - about one of every eight people who now have job-based health coverage, the study predicts. It would "raise costs, reduce the generosity of benefits and leave people with fewer consumer protections."

These losses would come despite McCain's plan to give a refundable tax credits for health insurance of $2,500 to single workers and $5,000 to families.

Steve White, executive director of the Affiliated Construction Trades Foundation based in Charleston, believes McCain's plan would reduce the wages of a typical West Virginia construction worker by $1 an hour.

About 60 percent of Americans, 180 million people, get health insurance through employers. Current federal tax subsidies to employers encourage them to provide the same coverage to skilled and unskilled workers and to pool risks by keeping younger, healthier workers in the same insurance pools with older workers.

New York Times columnist Bob Herbert criticized McCain's notion that "naked competition" can solve all economic problems. "We're seeing in the Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch fiascos just how well the unfettered marketplace has been working," he wrote. McCain's plan would cut government regulations, let markets control everything, and "send unsophisticated consumers into the crucible," Herbert added.

America needs a national single-payer insurance system that would cut medical costs drastically. By trying to help commercial insurers reap fat profits, the McCain plan would be a stride in the wrong direction.