In a bid to advance policies that expand health coverage, a key liberal group today praised the health care proposals of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) and criticized those of presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.).

Achieving affordable health care “will depend on who is elected,” said Ron Pollack, executive vice president of Families USA. Obama wants to strengthen employer-sponsored health insurance, he said, while McCain wants to “accelerate the erosion of health coverage in the workplace.”

Pollack charged that McCain’s plan will result in a “substantial diminution of employer-sponsored health coverage.”

At an event today in Denver, the group also discussed newly released Census Bureau data on uninsured Americans.

Pollack applauded data showing that the number of uninsured Americans dropped from 47 million in 2006 to 45.7 million in 2007. However, he added that the problem is hardly going away, noting that today’s number is still 7.3 million higher than it was in 2000 and “exceeds the combined population of 24 states and the District of Columbia.”

Whoever wins the election, Pollack said, “it is important that meaningful health care reform becomes the top and earliest domestic priority.”