USA Today Examines Presidential Candidates' Differing Philosophies On Health Care

Main Category: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Also Included In: Public Health
Article Date: 27 Mar 2008 - 11:00 PST

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USA Today on Wednesday examined the "sharply different philosophies" of presidential candidates Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) and their parties regarding "how Americans should get and pay for their health care."

According to health care consultant Robert Laszewski, Kaiser Family Foundation President and CEO Drew Altman and other experts, there are three major areas in which Democrats' and Republicans' plans differ:

• Clinton and Obama propose covering "all or nearly all" people, while McCain "says worry about [reducing health] costs first and expand coverage later";
  
  
• Democrats would require "most, if not all," people to have health coverage and would require insurers to cover everyone who applies to purchase coverage, while Republicans would not mandate anyone to purchase coverage or require insurers to sell coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions; and
  
  
• Democrats would enhance the current system of employer health coverage, while Republicans "lean more on tax incentives" to encourage people to purchase their own coverage and less on coverage provided by a job.

According to USA Today, McCain's proposals could "continue to leave millions of people without insurance" and could increase the number of employers who drop coverage or limit health plans, while Clinton's and Obama's plans could cost more than anticipated because of expanded coverage.

According to USA Today, several economic factors, "combined with the growing number of uninsured people," have "created the broadest public appetite for change" since Clinton spearheaded an attempt to implement a national health care system in the 1990s. However, experts disagree about whether the campaign debate over health care will lead to significant change once a new president takes office, USA Today reports.

According to former HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson, 2008 will be the "first presidential election that will have a good share of the campaign fought around health care." Thompson added that "2009 will be the biggest successful year in the transformation of health care that we have seen since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s." However, Harvard University health policy professor Robert Blendon said he predicts a "huge stalemate" on health care because "[t]here used to be a sense of a moderate middle that shared some of the values and concerns of each party," but now "there are not a lot of people in the middle." Altman said, "No one has a frontal assault on health care costs because that is somewhere between politically unpopular and political suicide" (Appleby, USA Today, 3/26).

McCain on Tobacco
McCain's "longtime effort to crack down on tobacco is being put to a new test" as the Senate is set to vote on whether to allow FDA to regulate tobacco, the Boston Globe reports.

According to the Globe, McCain's "decade of work" to regulate tobacco is "one of the most significant efforts of his congressional career" and has "earned him enmity from the industry and from some fellow Republicans." In 1997, when asked by Republican leaders to get involved in negotiations over the national tobacco settlement, McCain "jumped on the issue," advocating that the money be "spent wisely on public health," the Globe reports. McCain in 1997 also supported a proposed $1.10-per-pack increase in the cigarette tax to generate funding to discourage underage smoking and other initiatives.

However, recently McCain has "dropped his support" for increasing cigarette taxes. In 2007, McCain voted against a 61-cents-per-pack increase in the tobacco tax that would be used to fund the expansion of SCHIP. During a policy forum in October 2007, McCain said, "Now help me out here: We are trying to get people not to smoke, and yet we are depending on tobacco to fund a program that's designed for children's health?" adding, "I can't buy that." McCain also told a reporter earlier this year that if he is elected president, he would have a "no new taxes" policy. Some anti-smoking activists are "disappointed" that McCain has "backed off" in his support for tobacco taxes, the Globe reports.

According to the Globe, tobacco could become a focus in McCain's presidential campaign "because of his opposition to taxing cigarettes, rather than his support for it." Clinton and Obama both support the 61-cents-per-pack tax increase to expand SCHIP, the Globe reports (Kranish, Boston Globe, 3/26).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation© 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.