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CHICAGO : Exactly one month before the US presidential vote, Democrat Barack Obama Saturday accused Republican rival John McCain of scheming to deprive millions more Americans of life-saving health insurance.
Ahead of their second debate on Tuesday, the White House hopefuls were both readying aggressive new attacks in the final stretch before the November 4 election, with McCain bidding to cast Obama as a dangerous radical.
After Congress approved a 700-billion-dollar financial bailout plan, top McCain adviser Greg Strimple promised a "very aggressive last 30 days" of campaigning to erode Obama's growing lead in the polls.
"We are looking forward to turning a page on this financial crisis and getting back to discussing Mr Obama's aggressively liberal record and how he will be too risky for Americans," he told The Washington Post.
But the Democrat was also leveling accusations of extremism, launching an advertising onslaught on TV and radio claiming that McCain's policies would see 20 million more Americans lose their employer-funded health insurance.
The United States, the world's biggest economy, already faces a health care crisis; nearly 50 million Americans have no health insurance whatsoever.
And now, with the economy threatened by recession at a time of crisis on Wall Street, Obama's attacks could resonate with voters fearful of losing their jobs and thus coverage for their families.
In remarks prepared for delivery at a rally Saturday in Newport News, Virginia, Obama noted that McCain proposed to give families a tax credit of 5,000 dollars towards paying for rocketing health care costs.
"But like those ads for prescription drugs, you have to read the fine print to learn the rest of the story," said the Illinois senator, who is proposing subsidies and tax breaks to bring in near-universal health care.
"He taxes health care benefits for the first time in history; millions lose the health care they have; millions pay more for the health care they get; drug and insurance companies continue to profit; and middle-class families watch the system they rely on begin to unravel before their eyes," he said.
"So when you read the fine print, it's clear that John McCain is pulling an old Washington bait and switch. It's a shell game. He gives you a tax credit with one hand -- but raises your taxes with the other."
McCain insists his health care plan would generate more competition and drive down costs, and that Obama's plan would deprive voters of their choice of doctor through creating a "vast new bureaucracy" run by the government.
The Republican, who has retreated to his Arizona ranch to prepare for Tuesday's debate in Tennessee, is meanwhile rolling out his own ad offensive that portrays Obama as a radical tax-and-spend liberal.
But following Friday's approval by US lawmakers of the financial rescue plan, McCain is also trying to shift the narrative away from the economy with parallel attacks on Obama's inexperience and liberal associates.
"I guarantee you, you're going to learn a lot about who's the liberal and who's the conservative and who wants to raise your taxes and who wants to lower them," the Arizona senator told voters in Colorado Friday.
But McCain, touting his "maverick" credentials, is at the same time promising to drain Washington of partisan rancor.
"I will reach out my hand to anyone to help me get this country moving again. I have that record and the scars to prove it," he said in his weekly radio address Saturday.
Obama has emerged strengthened from the financial crisis, projecting an image of calm under fire that has boosted his poll lead to an average of six points over McCain, according to RealClearPolitics.com.
Despite McCain's dash back to Washington last week to try to get a deal on the table, Obama was widely credited with helping to break the deadlock among lawmakers.
Obama said he had lobbied a number of Democratic members of the House of Representatives who wanted assurances from him, "as potentially the next president," that he would step up efforts to prevent home foreclosures.
McCain said the hefty package passed by the House Friday was a necessary "outrage" and vowed to clean up Wall Street if elected.
- AFP /ls
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