In LA Senate campaign, health plans call for big changes

Democratic U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, and her Republican challenger, John Kennedy, each advocate a major reshaping of an American healthcare system. Kennedy, the state treasurer making his second run for the Senate, favors shifting more responsibility for obtaining health coverage onto individuals through changes to the federal tax code and by erasing federal barriers that prevent people from buying insurance across state lines. Landrieu, running for a third term, supports the bipartisan Healthy Americans Act, that would dismantle the current system of employer-based health coverage in favor of requiring people to buy health coverage from a pool of state-regulated private plans.