Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report Highlights Recent Coverage Of Presidential Candidates' Health Care Positions

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• John Edwards: Former Sen. Edwards (D-N.C.) "has laid out perhaps the most comprehensive program of any Democra[t] running" to eradicate poverty within 30 years by expanding access to health care and other proposals, the Los Angeles Times reports. Edwards is testing an "old notion: that talking about poor people is a politically losing proposition," the Times reports (Barabak, Los Angeles Times, 7/13). ABC's "Good Morning America" on Monday reported on Edwards's participation at a town hall meeting in New Orleans, where he talked about health and other issues ("Good Morning America," ABC, 7/16). Coverage of the event is available online.
  
  
• Rudy Giuliani: Former New York City Mayor Giuliani (R) served for about five years after he left the mayor's office in 2002 as an attorney and consultant for Purdue Pharma, helping the company address repercussions from abuse of painkiller OxyContin, Long Island Newsday reports. The company and its three top executives in May agreed to pay a $640 million fine and plead guilty to fraudulently marketing the drug from 1995 to 2001 by misrepresenting its addictiveness. "While some political experts say [Giuliani has] nothing to worry about because he wasn't involved in Purdue's lawbreaking, others said his role could be a fat target for opponents," Newsday reports (Riley, Long Island Newsday, 7/15).
  
  
• Mike Huckabee: Meghan O'Hara, producer of Michael Moore's documentary "Sicko," last week questioned former Arkansas Gov. Huckabee's (R) reasons for criticizing the film, the AP/Macon Telegraph reports. Huckabee, who lost more than 110 pounds after he was diagnosed with diabetes, said that Moore was "an example of why the health care system costs so much in this country," adding, "I know how much more my health care cost when I didn't take care of myself than when I do take care of myself, not only in terms of doctor visits but regular diseases, illnesses, chronic things that come up, monthly prescription bills." Huckabee said he had not seen "Sicko" but questioned the film's suggestion that health care in Cuba is superior to U.S. health care. O'Hara said, "Looks like Mike Huckabee is auditioning for some insurance company dough, since he's raised just about no money and sparked zero interest since jumping into the race," adding, "I wonder what the good governor would say to the French, who drink more, smoke more, eat more cheese and still live longer than us despite paying less for health care?" (Demillo, AP/Macon Telegraph, 7/13).
  
  
• Mitt Romney: Former Massachusetts Gov. Romney's (R) television ads "do not mention what is arguably his most impressive accomplishment as governor: pushing through universal health care for state residents," the McClatchy/Miami Herald reports. "He hasn't talked about health much," Drew Altman, president and CEO of the Kaiser Family Foundation, said. Robert Blendon, a health policy professor at Harvard University, gave two reasons why Romney is not focusing his campaign on the Massachusetts reform law: Republican voters generally do not like the idea of having the government require individuals to obtain health insurance and Republicans generally are less interested than other voters in health care as a political issue. Romney spokesperson Kevin Madden said that Romney was not advocating the Massachusetts reform as a national model. "Gov. Romney believes this particular approach works well for one state, and states should be given the flexibility they need to be innovative in their effort to expand access to care while making it more affordable," Madden said (Thomma, McClatchy/Miami Herald, 7/15).

More Candidates To Release Health Proposals
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Republican candidates Giuliani and Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) will release health care proposals in the coming weeks, according to staffers, the New York Post reports. Clinton, like fellow Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) and Edwards, endorses universal health insurance "even if the government shoulders more of the costs," according to the Post.

Clinton has yet to announce her position regarding a mandate requiring individuals to have insurance, which Edwards supports and Obama does not. However, none of their proposals "is expected to appease hard-line reformers" who are demanding a single-payer system, the Post reports.

In speeches and debates, Giuliani has advocated encouraging people to purchase individual insurance and would provide a tax incentive to purchase coverage. McCain has stated that he supports providing tax incentives to low-income individuals to purchase health insurance and expanding community health centers (Adams Otis, New York Post, 7/15).

Editorial
"Securing affordable health care for all is ... the right thing to do" and is "key to cutting excess costs," a Times editorial states. Presidential candidates should support requiring "states to devise their own universal coverage solutions" that would "insist that business, individual taxpayers and the insured split the cost of coverage" and create "insurance exchanges," which would "group healthy and less-healthy people together, making coverage affordable for individuals who aren't lucky enough to have insurance through their employers," according to the editorial.

"Vague pronouncements of faith in 'market-based solutions' are worthless when there is no rational market at work and where accurate pricing information is scarce," the editorial continues. "The cost question is a painful one because it inevitably leads to the question of sacrifice," according to the Times. "If everyone is going to be covered, every treatment probably won't be," but the U.S. "already rations health care -- those without insurance routinely go without care," the editorial states. Rather than succumbing to "slogans" and the "rapid-fire exchange that too often characterizes our modern political campaigns," candidates must put forward "substantive proposals" to fix the nation's economically "unsustainable" health care system, the Times writes (Los Angeles Times, 7/15).

"Reprinted with 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.