Has anyone bothered to notice the radical changes that John McCain and Sarah Palin are planning for the nation’s health insurance system?

Now here are the sobering facts:

These are changes that will set in motion nothing less than the dismantling of the employer-based coverage that protects most American families. A study coming out Tuesday from scholars at Columbia, Harvard, Purdue and Michigan projects that 20 million Americans who have employment-based health insurance would lose it under the McCain plan.

And the most damming part of McCain’s medical plan:

According to the study: “The McCain plan will force millions of Americans into the weakest segment of the private insurance system — the nongroup market — where cost-sharing is high, covered services are limited and people will lose access to benefits they have now.” The net effect of the plan, the study said, “almost certainly will be to increase family costs for medical care.”

Herbert goes on to state what we already know:

There is nothing secret about Senator McCain’s far-reaching proposals, but they haven’t gotten much attention because the chatter in this campaign has mostly been about nonsense — lipstick, celebrities and “Drill, baby, drill!”

Obama really needs to find a way to get past this McCain smokescreen during the first debate in on September 26th.