They say timing is everything. For John McCain, this was the worst possible time to have this article (pdf) come out in which McCain writes:
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.
Jonathan Cohn discuses the problems with McCain’s plan for deregulation while Obama took advantage of this problem for McCain in the above ad. As he notes, “States are the ones who must regulate the insurance policies that carriers sell directly to individuals (as opposed to the ones large employers provide for their employees).” While McCain is primarily talking about deregulation to allow cross-state sales, the effect of this would be to leave individuals with far less protection and insurance companies far freer to do what they please.
