The stories abound, ad nauseum, about Barack Obama and his wife and pastor, about Hillary Clinton and her husband, and every campaign stop they’re all making and everything they’re all saying. Who’s paying attention to the other candidate running for president?

National Review, for one. They’ve been paying to Mcain’s plans for health care reform.

What a candidate cares about, he spends “trail time” (as in campaign) talking about, and Senator McCain has made health care a key policy initiative — and is now ramping up time, talent, and treasure on the health-care issue.

It is unusual in recent years for a Republican to lead with health-care reform, since it is widely perceived to be a Democratic-dominated issue. The reason Sen. McCain is leading with health care is because his plan is a winner.

I haven’t noticed much press coverage on his plan at all, so riveted are the media on the other candidates.

To be clear, these authors have the vested interest in the health care topic because of their book noted in the article. But that’s precisely why they’re listening so closely to the plans of all the candidates and scrutinizing them for what may actually work. They obviously think McCain’s would.

Sen. McCain understands that the 47 million uninsured is not only an injustice, but an excuse for the big-government, Medicare-for-all crowd to hijack our health-care system in the name of insuring the uninsured.

Both Democratic candidates propose plans that grow big government to not only spend more, but control more. With all the attention lately focused on Obama and pastor Wright, Hillary’s comeback chances and shifting strategies, virtually no media are analyzing the larger issues like this one. They probably figure there’s time for that when the race is narrowed to the final two. But now’s a good time to look at their proposals for anything they’re willing to talk about.

And these two authors are on top of the gnarly health care problem that’s only one of the crises America faces. As they see it…

…the fairer, simpler, cleaner way of insuring the uninsured is through cash distributions for the purchase of health insurance — and funding the entire program through the ending of unfair tax breaks that give only employees with employer-provided health benefits thousands of dollars in tax breaks. Employees of employers who do not provide health insurance now not only get no health benefit, they also receive no tax break to buy their own policies.

Senator McCain’s emphasis on patient choice and control is another winning message. It means he trusts you to make better health-care decisions about your health with your doctor than can a government or corporate bureaucrat.

If pressed, how many Americans would say they want government to limit their health-care providers and procedures?

The situation we need to avoid is now the reality in Senator Clinton’s home county of Westchester, New York, where the average HMO premium for a family is $34,072.92.

That price is no typographical error, and is what happens when government controls are imposed on the private sector — New York State is a model of what not to do in health-care policy.

This may sound wonk-ish to most folks right now. But it will directly affect all folks after the next election. All the current ranting and spinning is getting coverage, but we should be talking about coverage of a different sort.