Comparing Obama's Campaign Pledges To The Reality Of Reform

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CBS News reports on five health care campaign promises made by then candidate Barack Obama. "To his credit, Mr. Obama has come closer to achieving many of those [campaign] promises than many may have expected him to. ... However, even though there is plenty of work left for Congress before it can put a health care bill on Mr. Obama's desk the bills in development indicate that some of Mr. Obama's promises may be long gone. Here is a look at five of Mr. Obama's health care campaign promises that are unlikely to come to fruition." They include a pledge for no individual mandate, complete transparency, enabling the government to directly negotiate drug prices, allowing drug importation and lowering premiums by $2,500 for a family of four (Condon, 9/21).

In other stories explaining parts of the reform process, Bloomberg compares some of the biggest similarities and differences in health-care legislation in the House and Senate, noting that: "Five U.S. congressional committees have worked on legislation to overhaul the U.S. health-care system, with the aim of expanding coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans and curtailing costs." Bloomberg reports on similarities in the legislation including on individual mandate, expanding coverage, insurer requirements, reducing costs, biologics and comparing treatments. The differences are on the public option, cooperatives, employer mandate and financing (Jensen and Gaouette, 9/21).

The Associated Press examines the issues surrounding a requirement that all individuals get health insurance (Beamish, 9/21).

Meanwhile, the Washington Post/Associated Press provides a fact check on the issue of taxation and an individual mandate: "Memo to President Barack Obama: It's a tax. Obama insisted this weekend on national television that requiring people to carry health insurance -- and fining them if they don't -- isn't the same thing as a tax increase. But the language of Democratic bills to revamp the nation's health care system doesn't quibble. Both the House bill and the Senate Finance Committee proposal clearly state that the fines would be a tax. And the reason the fines are in the legislation is to enforce the coverage requirement" (Alonso-Zaldivar, 9/22).

This information was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives and sign up for email delivery at kaiserhealthnews.org.

© Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

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