During last night’s acceptance speech, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), insinuated that comprehensive health care reform would undermine the current system:

My health care plan will make it easier for more Americans to find and keep good health care insurance. His plan will force small businesses to cut jobs, reduce wages, and force families into a government run health care system where a bureaucrat stands between you and your doctor.

So-called government-run health care has done marvels for the senator. As Ezra Klein points out, McCain “has never been off government health care a day in his life, and is healthy enough to run for president at 72.”

But personal history aside, McCain’s fear-mongering about comprehensive universal reform, is both deceitful and dishonest.

Consider Massachusetts’s landmark health reform law. The legislation built “upon the existing health care system, with expansions to Medicaid, subsidized coverage for people with low incomes, and reform of private insurance markets.” Far from forcing bureaucrats into consult rooms, the legislation increased access to meaningful care:

- The overall uninsurance rate for adults in Massachusetts decreased from 13% to 7%.

- For low-income adults, dental visits increased 9% and preventive care visits increased 6%.

- Low-income adults…who said they had not received care due to cost decreased from 27% in 2006 to 17% in 2007

McCain’s concerns about families being forced into “government care” — i.e. his insurance — also never materialized. In Massachusetts, “employer coverage increased by five percentage points” and there has been no evidence that “employers are less likely to offer coverage to their workers under health reform than before.”

Seventy-one percent of Massachusetts residents support these reforms. But if McCain is so scared of government programs, perhaps he should opt out of his own insurance coverage.

Our guest blogger is Jonathan Moreno, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Try this thought experiment: Imagine America lost its lead in science. What would be the effects for economic growth, health care, energy, communications, information technology and national security? Or try to think of a sector of our society that would not be affected.

The American founders got this even before the word science was used the way we use it today. They foresaw that the new nation’s power and prosperity would be founded partly on technological innovation. They admired and sought to nurture and reward the creative spirit. Jefferson’s patent statute is perhaps the most obvious example, but each member of the founding pantheon had a specific interest in “natural philosophy.”

In that spirit, a group of science organizations have asked both presidential candidates to respond to 14 key questions about the future of American science. So far, only Sen. Obama has responded.

Sen. McCain has claimed to recognize the importance of science and the urgency of innovation. His website states:

John McCain Would Place A Priority On Science And Technology Experience. As President, John McCain will be committed to bringing talented men and women of science into the federal government. He will strive to ensure that Administration appointees across the government have adequate experience and understanding of science, technology and innovation in order to better serve the American people.

He also points out, “Less than 20 percent of our undergraduate students obtained degrees in math or science, and the number of computer science majors has fallen by half over the last eight years.”

These numbers are clearly abysmal. So why hasn’t McCain responded to the questions of these science organizations?

Has Sen. McCain been napping in science class? That’s one final exam that America can’t afford to fail.