Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report Highlights Recent Developments Related To Health Care Issues In Presidential Election

Main Category: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Article Date: 27 Oct 2008 - 8:00 PDT

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Summaries of several recent developments related to health care issues in the presidential election appear below.

• Ad spending: Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) this year has spent $113 million on television advertisements related to health care, eight times the amount that Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) has spent, The Politico reports. In October, Obama has spent $48.5 million, or 86% of his ad budget, on ads related to health care, compared with $261,000, or 1.5%, for McCain. For the year, Obama has spent 68% of his ad budget on ads related to health care, compared with 13% for McCain. Obama has run a total of 117 ads related to health care, and McCain has run 10 (Frates, The Politico, 10/24).
  
  
• Advocates: The "resurgence" of health care reform as an election issue in the past few weeks has "helped invigorate" Divided We Fail, a campaign launched by AARP and other groups that seeks to focus the presidential election on health care and financial security issues, according to advocates who spoke at a forum on Wednesday, The Hill reports. According to The Hill, advocates "seeking to direct the presidential and congressional candidates to focus on health care issues have ... been aided by politicians linking voters' anxieties about the economy to their worry about their health benefits" (Young, The Hill, 10/23).
  
  
• Health care as issue for voters: Health care remains an important issue to voters, regardless of whether the concern receives "star billing on the campaign trail," the AP/Minneapolis Star Tribune reports. The AP/Star Tribune highlighted the problems that three U.S. households have faced in their efforts to find and afford health insurance (Pace, AP/Minneapolis Star Tribune, 10/23).
  
  
• Health care reform: The health care system likely would change significantly under the Obama and McCain proposals, as both plans could "hasten the end of Americans getting health insurance through their employers, McClatchy/Kansas City Star reports (Hall, McClatchy/Kansas City Star, 10/23).
  
  
• The uninsured: Many critics question whether the McCain health care proposal would "help those without insurance obtain insurance," and some analysts "believe over time more and more people would find themselves without health insurance" under the plan, McClatchy/Herald reports. In addition, critics have raised concerns that the proposal would "undermine employer-based coverage," according to McClatchy/Miami Herald (Lightman, McClatchy/Miami Herald, 10/23).
  
  
• Unions: Two labor unions have begun to run ads "falsely characterizing McCain's health care plan," Newsweek reports. According to Newsweek, the United Auto Workers has run an ad that includes a woman who claims she would pay as much as $2,800 more in taxes under the proposal, but that figure is "based on a false assumption about what McCain is actually proposing." In addition, the Service Employees International Union has run an ad that claims the proposal would "deny coverage for pre-existing conditions," a false claim, as the plan only lacks a requirement that health insurers accept applicants with such conditions (Robertson, Newsweek, 10/17).
  
  
• United Mine Workers: Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Joseph Biden (Del.) on Thursday in Raleigh, N.C., met with seven members of UMW to discuss their concerns about health care and other issues, the Charleston Gazette reports. Bill Banig, legislature director for UMW, said, "One major concern we have is that the McCain health care plan would tax our health care benefits and would put a tremendous tax on our mining families" (Nyden, Charleston Gazette, 10/24).
  
  
• Veterans' health care: One of the few issues on which Obama and McCain agree is that the Department of Veterans Affairs health care system requires reform, McClatchy/Miami Herald reports. Joe Davis, a spokesperson for the Veterans of Foreign Wars, said, "We expect whoever becomes president to take care of America's veterans" (Adams, McClatchy/Miami Herald, 10/23).

Examination of Health Care Proposals
Three newspapers recently examined the Obama and McCain health care proposals. Summaries appear below.

• The Seattle Times on Friday examined how Obama and McCain have proposed "far-reaching -- and strikingly different -- reforms that could reshape health care for the uninsured and insured alike" and how those change could affect U.S. residents (Song, Seattle Times, 10/24). The Times examined health insurance scenarios under the proposals for three groups: working couples with adequate coverage; single, working residents who lack coverage; and small-business owners who offer coverage to employees.
  
  
• U.S. News & World Report on Thursday compared the effect that the Obama and McCain health care proposals would have at a time when the "economy has worsened and employers have continued to shift health care costs to their employees" (Andrews, U.S. News & World Report, 10/23).
  
  
• The Wall Street Journal on Friday examined the Obama and McCain health proposals. According to the Journal, "Obama favors increased federal control to build a 'universal' system in stages," and "McCain prefers to maximize the incentives for individuals and families to buy private health insurance on their own" (Rago, Wall Street Journal, 10/24).

Opinion Pieces
Several newspapers recently published an editorial and several opinion pieces that addressed health care issues in the presidential election. Summaries appear below.

• Deroy Murdock, Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Obama has announced a number of proposals, such as his health care plan, that would "work like brass knuckles on a wobbly economy" and "threaten to pulverize growth and jobs," Scripps Howard columnist Murdock, a media fellow at the Hoover Institute, writes in a Post-Intelligencer opinion piece. According to Murdock, the Obama health care proposal would require many employers to offer health insurance to employees or pay into a federal fund to provide coverage, and Obama "has been coy about the penalty," which would "be yet another cost that companies struggle to cover" (Murdock, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 10/23).
  
  
• Alan Reynolds, Wall Street Journal: Obama "has offered no clue as to how he intends to pay" for his health care and other proposals, Reynolds, a senior fellow with the Cato Institute, writes in a Journal opinion piece. According to Reynolds, although "he may hope to collect an even larger share of loot from the top of the heap, the harsh reality is that this Democrat's quest for hundreds of billions more revenue each year would have to reach deep into the pockets of the people much lower on the economic ladder." He concludes, "Even then he'd come up short" (Reynolds, Wall Street Journal, 10/24).

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