The presidential nominees' healthcare plans will affect every American. Experts foresee a shakeup that expands insurance coverage but costs at least $1.3 trillion over the next decade.

Republican Sen. John McCain would shift more responsibility from businesses to employees by taxing health benefits and instead giving tax credits to individuals who find coverage. The Tax Policy Institute expects that 20 million people would leave employer health plans and 21 million people would find other coverage in 2009, a net gain of 1 million insured. It sees the number of uninsured declining by nearly 5 million by 2013 but then increasing as insurance costs outpace the tax credit.

In contrast, Sen. Barack Obama's $1.6 trillion plan could cost about 19 percent more than McCain's 10-year price tag but cover far more uninsured Americans, about 34 million within a decade. He'd do this by creating a federally run health insurance program that would compete with private companies. Parents would have to insure their children, and large businesses that don't offer coverage would be penalized, but the proposal falls short of Democrats' longtime goal of universal health care.

How the candidates' healthcare proposals may affect you, based largely on recent reports from the Tax Policy Center and the journal Health Affairs:

McCain's move toward "a relatively unregulated nongroup market will tend to raise costs, reduce the generosity of benefits, and leave people with fewer consumer protections," the September/October issue of Health Affairs cautions, and Obama's plan "greatly increases the federal regulation of private insurance but does not address the core economic incentives that drive health care spending," raising "serious questions about its fiscal sustainability."

In other words, this election won't cure America's healthcare crisis, and the winner will likely find that his prescription eases some symptoms but also has side effects.

More: Another look at how the nominees would change your health care.

Plus: What do you think of the candidates and their proposals? How are you coping with the high cost of health care? Sound off on the Hot Topics in Health message board.