Opinion Pieces Discuss Health Care Proposals From Presidential Candidates

Main Category: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Article Date: 04 Jan 2008 - 10:00 PDT

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Summaries of three opinion pieces about health care proposals from presidential candidates and related issues appear below.

• Morton Kondracke, Roll Call: "While the political world is fixated this weekend on what the Iowa caucus results mean for New Hampshire," a "really useful" meeting will occur at the University of Oklahoma, where a "bipartisan group of moderate ex-politicians is gathering to discuss how to solve the top policy problems facing America," some of which involve health care, Roll Call Executive Editor Kondracke writes in an opinion piece. According to Kondracke, on health care issues, the group could propose to: "Means-test Medicare benefits and use the soon-to-be-insolvent Medicare system to prod the U.S. health care industry toward rewarding providers for keeping people healthy, not simply treating illness"; reform the U.S. health care system by "making private insurance coverage mandatory, with tax credits available for people and small businesses that can't afford premiums"; help cover the cost of reform by "eliminating tax breaks for so-called 'Cadillac' health plans"; and computerize all medical records and "make data on hospitals, drugs, treatments and doctors available online" (Kondracke, Roll Call, 1/2).
  
  
• Robert Novak, Washington Post: Presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) enters the Iowa caucuses on Thursday "not as the inevitable Democratic presidential nominee but seriously challenged ... thanks in no small part to committing a strategic error: premature triangulation" in her health care proposal, columnist Novak writes in a Post opinion piece. He writes that a "longtime Democratic consultant, not involved in any campaign this time" suggested to a campaign "intermediary" that Clinton propose a "genuine universal health care scheme" -- under which U.S. residents "would be covered by Medicare, except those who chose to retain their private health insurance plans." Instead, according to Novak, Clinton "prematurely introduced a general election strategy when in fact the party nomination was still in doubt." According to Novak, although her "current call for mandatory health care coverage might seem radical," the proposal is "criticized on the left as embracing 'shared responsibility' with private health insurance firms (similar to plans by Republican Govs. Mitt Romney in Massachusetts and Arnold Schwarzenegger in California)" (Novak, Washington Post, 1/3).
  
  
• Gary Andres, Washington Times: "America nears a tipping point on health care policy as 2008 begins," but the proposals from the presidential candidates "sound more like marketing plans for candidates in primaries than strategies to advance legislation in Washington," Andres, vice chair of research and policy for Dutko Worldwide, writes in a Times opinion piece. "Unlike some other narrower issues, reform in the wide-reaching area of health care policy will wither absent bipartisan irrigation and deeper conversation with voters," Andres writes, adding, "Unfortunately in this highly charged political season, many only focus on scoring political points rather than outlining a realistic plan for success." The Healthy Americans Act, co-sponsored by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Robert Bennett (R-Utah), represents one of the "best examples" of "combining a sound policy proposal with a realistic plan to navigate the political process," according to Andres. Wyden and other supporters of the bill "deserve commendation" because they have proposed "big changes in American health care, transformations that will take time and shake up the current system," he writes. He adds that "soothing American anxiety about the enormity of these reforms requires more public understanding," which "happens by locking bipartisan arms, not crossing political swords" (Andres, Washington Times, 1/3).

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