Interest Groups Promote Health Reform As Election Issue During Democratic Convention

Main Category: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Also Included In: Public Health
Article Date: 29 Aug 2008 - 11:00 PDT

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Health care "may be taking a back seat" at the Democratic National Convention but "liberal activists are fighting to make sure it is center stage during the presidential campaign," The Hill reports. According to The Hill, Democrats had believed that health care "would be at the head of the domestic agenda this election year," but the economy and gas prices have emerged as more important issues in the campaign. Dozens of events have been held by advocacy groups, as well as corporate interests such as the drugmaker AstraZeneca and lobbying organizations such as the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.

Health care "has not been absent from the convention," The Hill reports. Both former Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) "highlighted" health reform in their speeches, and Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) likely will discuss the issue in his speech on Thursday.

Rep. Marion Berry (D-Ark.), a former pharmacist, said, "I don't think any Democrat can have a successful campaign and not address (health care)."

Families USA Executive Director Ron Pollack said, "It is important that the next president and the next Congress make health care reform a top and early priority." He said that some of the events have highlighted the "very significant difference" between the health care proposals of Obama and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.).

Service Employees International Union President Andy Stern said, "McCain is repackaging the failed policies of the past."

"In spite of the enthusiasm of activists ... and the rhetoric of politicians, the left wing remains deeply divided about health care reform," with some supporting a single-payer system and others working to "preserve the private health care market," according to The Hill (Young, The Hill, 8/27).

Presidential Agenda
Obama as president likely would approve several bills vetoed by President Bush -- such as legislation that would expand SCHIP -- "within days of the opening of the next Congress," the Washington Post reports. Bush twice vetoed legislation that would have expanded SCHIP (Weisman, Washington Post, 8/28).

In related news, Obama on Wednesday during a campaign event in Montana promised to expand nationwide a state pilot program that assesses the mental health of veterans. Under the program, the Montana National Guard tests veterans for post-traumatic stress disorder every six months for the first two years after they return from combat and once annually in subsequent years. The program exceeds national standards established by the Department of Defense (Newhouse, Great Falls Tribune, 8/28).

Obama Should Focus More on Health Care, Op-Ed States
"If Obama is going to triumph, he needs to attract the middle-class voters who've watched their jobs, health care, retirement savings and family finances grow less secure," but "this will only happen if he sharpens and expands his economic message, without further delay," Jacob Hacker, a professor of political science at the University of California-Berkeley and a fellow at the New America Foundation, writes in a New York Daily News opinion piece.

"To do that, he must put three moves into his economic playbook so far mostly lacking," one of which is an increased focus on health care, according to Hacker. "Last year, Obama outlined a health plan light years better than McCain's -- and then pretty much stopped talking about it," Hacker writes, adding, "Democrats gain when health care is an issue" because "people see the economy and health care as intertwined" (Hacker, New York Daily News, 8/27).

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.

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