John McCain's Healthcare Plan.

There's a lot to recommend the McCain approach to healthcare, spelled out in some detail this morning in an address at the Lee Moffit Cancer Center—and fleshed out further in a media conference call between reporters/bloggers and two of the Senator's top advisors—Carly Fiorina and Doug Holtz-Eakin.

Free market/Federalist nuts like me are bound to have a few questions as we investigate this further, but McCain's plan certainly is more market-based/flexible than any other approach I've read about, and it doesn't create disincentives to continue research into pioneering treatments—nor forbid people from buying healthcare wherever they like (quite the opposite, in fact). Here's Johnny Mac's YouTube promo of the plan, and here's an article about the new approach that's highlighted on the McCain website.

There are a handful of important elements, here. McCain proposes:

1) Giving each family a $5000 tax credit, payable directly to the healthcare plan of their choice;

2) Creating the conditions so that people can buy healthcare across state lines, in the expectation that competition will lead to greater efficiency and lower costs;

3) Making it more difficult for the worst doctors to operate, by publishing doctor fee systems and patient ratings over the internet;

4) Leveling the playing field for the self-employed and the unemployed by making it truly feasible for individuals and families to "de-link" their healthcare from their employment, rather than, in effect, forcing people to change doctors every time they cahnge jobs;

5) Pushing forward on tort reform, to keep frivolous lawsuits from driving costs up for everyone else;

6) Encouraging healthcare providers to use individual case management, rather than fee-for-services programs, and to incentivize preventative care and healthful life choices for the patient; coaxing the industry into becoming more outcome-based (without—so Team McCain claims—creating mandates for those patients).

It's promising, and while I'd like to see minimal government involvement in healthcare, this is the lightest approach I've seen in some time, and it does address some of the perverse incentives in the existing system, while maing more care available at lower cost.

Thanks to Patrick Hynes, as always, for coordinating this, and the press office at McCain HQ for continuing the New Media outreach.