Question: Does John McCain Want to Deregulate the Health Insurance Industry?
Answer: No.
Barack Obama's campaign has included ads that accuse John McCain of stating he wants to deregulate the insurance industry along the same lines and magnitude that Wall Street was deregulated.
In the October 2, 2008 vice presidential debate, Sen. Joe Biden stated that McCain wanted to deregulate the health care industry as the banking industry had been. That is not at all what McCain said.
Here is what McCain actually did say:
"I would also allow individuals to choose to purchase health insurance across state lines, when they can find more affordable and attractive products elsewhere that they prefer. 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."
McCain was referring to opening up avenues to allow consumers to purchase health insurance across state lines - something that they cannot do now. This move would be to open up competition and allow consumers to shop in fifty states, instead of just one.
