Republican Presidential Candidates Romney, Giuliani Trade Criticism Over Health Care

Main Category: Public Health
Also Included In: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Article Date: 29 Nov 2007 - 5:00 PDT

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Presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) on Tuesday during an appearance at All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg, Fla., said that presidential candidate and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) in 1994 "had nothing but praise" for the health care proposal offered by former President Bill Clinton (D) and then-first lady Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), the AP/Miami Herald reports. According to a recent New York Times article, Giuliani in 1994 said that the proposal was "doing some pretty good things" (Farrington, AP/Miami Herald, 11/27).

Romney said, "Why the change in attitude? He was all roses and petals for Hillary's plan. ... Now that I'm running for president, he's decided it's not such a good idea" (Campanile, New York Post, 11/28).

Giuliani has criticized Romney for a recently implemented Massachusetts health insurance law that requires all state residents to obtain coverage. Giuliani spokesperson Katie Levinson said, "Romney passed a mandate and tax hike-laden health care plan in Massachusetts which Hillary Clinton's own legislative director said was just like HillaryCare" (AP/Miami Herald, 11/27).

Romney on Tuesday defended the law, which he said "didn't cost us more money" or "require raising taxes" because the state financed the legislation with federal funds provided to reimburse hospitals for charity care (Liberto, St. Petersburg Times, 11/28).

Clinton Criticizes Obama Health Care Plan
Clinton on Tuesday in Des Moines, Iowa, criticized presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) because his health care proposal would not require all U.S. residents to obtain health insurance despite a report he commissioned that supported such a mandate, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. As an Illinois senator, Obama commissioned a report that found an expansion of health insurance to all state residents would require such a mandate, Clinton said.

Obama "takes credit for ... a health care task force to look into the question, how do you provide universal health care in Illinois? Well, they came back with their report earlier this year and it is very clear: if you want universal health care, you need to have a mandate," Clinton said (Sweet, Chicago Sun-Times, 11/28). She added, "He got up to the edge of whether or not to support universal coverage and backed down because it is a more difficult goal to achieve" (McCormick, Chicago Tribune, 11/28).

According to the Sun-Times, the report recommended a plan in which "all Illinois residents will be required to obtain health care coverage" but was not completed until January -- three years after Obama left office in the state (Chicago Sun-Times, 11/28). Obama spokesperson Ben LaBolt said that Clinton opposed such a mandate in the 1990s, a claim denied by the Clinton campaign (Chicago Tribune, 11/28).

Additional Developments
Summaries of several additional developments in the presidential campaign related to health care appear below.

• Black voters: Likely black voters believe that Clinton is more likely than Obama to win the presidential election in 2008 and favor her health care proposal to his, according to a recent survey conducted by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and AARP, the Miami Herald reports. The survey, conducted between Oct. 5 and Nov. 12, includes responses from 750 likely black voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points. According to the survey, 47% of respondents said that they favor the Clinton health care proposal, and 19% said that they favor the Obama plan (Talev, Miami Herald, 11/28).
  
  
• Clinton on fiscal issues: Clinton has promised to restore "fiscal responsibility" to the U.S., but critics maintain that her health care proposal and other plans could increase the federal budget deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars, McClatchy/Forth Worth Star-Telegram reports. Clinton has proposed eliminating tax cuts for higher-income U.S. residents to finance her health care proposal, but the plan would not help reduce the federal budget deficit, according to Len Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute. According to Lee Farris, a federal tax policy coordinator for United for a Fair Economy, the proposal "is not deficit-neutral, it's deficit-worsening." She added, "That money in 2011 (from the expired tax cuts) is already claimed. When people spend money for programs already agreed to, they're counting on that money being there in 2011" (Sterns, McClatchy/Forth Worth Star-Telegram, 11/27).
  
  
• Kucinich proposal: Presidential candidate Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) on Monday at the Rotary Club of Nashua, N.H., discussed his proposal to establish a single-payer health care system, the Nashua Telegram reports. He said that U.S. residents have a right to health insurance funded by the federal government (McKeon, Nashua Telegram, 11/27).
  
  
• Nixon proposal: Former President Richard Nixon (R) in 1974 announced a health care proposal that "bears a striking resemblance" to the Clinton plan, which seeks to build on employer-sponsored health plans and provide financial assistance to the self-employed and small businesses to expand health insurance to all U.S. residents, the Herald reports. Nixon proposed the Comprehensive Health Insurance Act days after his final State of the Union address. He said, "I shall propose a sweeping new program that will assure comprehensive health insurance protection to millions of Americans who cannot now obtain it or afford it, with vastly improved protection against catastrophic illnesses." However, the Nixon proposal would not have required all residents to obtain health insurance (Hall, Miami Herald, 11/28).
  
  
• YouTube debate: All eight Republican candidates on Wednesday will participate in a debate that features questions submitted through YouTube focused on health care and other issues, the Wall Street Journal reports. For the two-hour debate, which will appear on CNN, moderators will select questions from an estimated 5,000 submitted. According to an analysis of the first 3,000 questions submitted, 15% focus on health care (Schatz, Wall Street Journal, 11/28).

Broadcast Coverage
Fox News Channel's "Special Report with Brit Hume" on Monday reported on criticism from Clinton and Obama related to their health care proposals. The segment includes comments from New Hampshire first lady Susan Lynch, Clinton, Obama, presidential candidate and former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) and a New Hampshire resident (Garrett, "Special Report with Brit Hume," Fox News Channel, 11/26). Video of the segment is available online.

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.