On candidates' health plans, the numbers fly

As Senators Barack Obama and John McCain battle over how best to control spending and cover the uninsured, they are both filling their speeches, advertisements, and debating points with statistics about the money they would save and the millions of Americans they would cover. But the figures they cite are invariably the roughest of estimates. Over time, these forecasts have become so disparate and contradictory as to be almost meaningless, according to this article in the New York Times.