Democratic Presidential Candidates Clinton, Obama Criticize Each Other's Health Care Proposals

Main Category: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Article Date: 27 Nov 2007 - 5:00 PDT


Presidential candidates Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) this weekend "intensified the bickering" over the differences in their health care proposals, the AP/Boston Globe reports.

Clinton on Sunday in an interview with the Associated Press said, "The difference is my health care plan covers every American and Sen. Obama's plan will not. He leaves 15 million people uncovered" because his proposal would not require all U.S. residents to obtain health insurance. In addition, she said, "It's a plan crafted for politics, not for people."

During an appearance at a Council Bluffs, Iowa, school on Saturday, Obama said, "The reason Americans don't have health insurance isn't because they don't want it, it's because they can't afford it, which is why my plan doesn't have a mandate and goes further in cutting costs than any other proposal offered in this race" (Glover, AP/Boston Globe, 11/25). He said, "Now, there may be a few people in our country, maybe young people who think they're going to live forever, who decide not to get health insurance even when it's affordable," adding, "If we see people are still not covered when we make it affordable, than we will figure out how to make sure that everybody is covered" (Tysver, Omaha World-Herald, 11/24). In addition, he said that Clinton has not specified penalties for residents who do not obtain health insurance under her proposal (AP/Boston Globe, 11/25).

Clinton said, "I'm going to negotiate with the Congress over that because different people in Congress have different approaches about how to do that" (Roug, Los Angeles Times, 11/26).

Giuliani on Romney
Presidential candidate and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) on Sunday said that presidential candidate and Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) "made a mistake" with a recently implemented state health insurance law that requires all residents to obtain coverage. The law, which took effect July 1, requires that all state residents obtain health insurance this year or face possible tax penalties after Jan. 1, 2008, with subsidies for lower-income residents.

Giuliani said that Romney "sort of did Hillary's plan in Massachusetts." He added, "When you mandate it, it ends up costing you much more money" (Van Sack, Boston Herald, 11/26). On Saturday, Giuliani criticized Romney for his efforts to distance himself from the law. "When you look back on Romney's governorship of Massachusetts, there's only one accomplishment, and he's running away from that," he said.

Romney said, "I was just across the country this week talking about my plan," adding, "I'm very proud of my health care plan and think it should be a model for other states to adopt." He also said that Giuliani has not announced a detailed health care proposal (Balz, Washington Post, 11/26).

Clinton Announces Autism Proposal
Clinton on Saturday announced a proposal to help families of children with autism and expand research into the causes of the disease, the AP/Washington Examiner reports. The proposal, which would increase annual spending on autism programs to $700 million, would expand research into the causes of the disease, improve education and early detection efforts, and train teachers to instruct students with autism.

"Parents will no longer be burdened by unmanageable premiums just because their children have autism," Clinton said. According to Clinton, "we don't know how to cure it, and we don't even know the best ways to treat it." She added, "I think it's time we had a government and a president who recognized the seriousness of autism and addressed it head-on" (Lorentzen, AP/Washington Examiner, 11/25).

Cancer in Politics
The Chicago Tribune on Sunday examined how, with "health care a chief concern for many voters, cancer advocates now are able to shape the debate as never before." According to the Tribune, patients have "banded together with cancer survivors and advocates to influence elections, policy and science" on issues such as health care reform, research funds and improved screening.

The Tribune also examined the efforts of cyclist and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong, whose foundation organized a forum of presidential candidates in August (Weber, Chicago Tribune, 11/25). The Lance Armstrong Foundation had accumulated almost $60 million in assets at the end of last year (Garrett, Dallas Morning News, 11/24).

Opinion Pieces

• Manchester Union Leader: Obama "deserves credit not only for refusing to offer the false hope of 'universal coverage' but for pointing out that his rivals are offering empty promises," according to a Union Leader editorial. According to the editorial, "as Massachusetts is discovering, passing a law to require that people get health insurance," as Clinton has proposed, "will not make all people get it." Obama "doesn't pretend his health care plan is a panacea" and "resists the temptation to promise the impossible -- provide universal coverage and control costs -- and for that he should be commended," the editorial states (Manchester Union Leader, 11/25).
  
  
• Caroline Poplin, Miami Herald: The major Democratic presidential candidates have "converged on a model of health care reform," the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, Poplin, a visiting scholar at Georgetown University, writes in a Herald opinion piece, adding, "If it sounds too good to be true, it is." According to Poplin, FEHBP "works, not because of its ingenious structure, but because it serves a classic insurance market -- a large group of mostly healthy people gathered together for a purpose other than buying insurance." She adds, "If it were opened to the public, the sickest people most in need of insurance would quickly sign up, premiums would rise and insurance companies would set new limits to discourage costly patients (Poplin, Miami Herald, 11/22).

Broadcast Coverage
NPR's "Morning Edition" on Monday included a discussion with NPR health policy correspondent Julie Rovner about a series of forums organized by Families USA and the Federation of American Hospitals to examine positions of the presidential candidates on health care (Montagne, "Morning Edition," NPR, 11/26). Audio of the segment is available online. Live and archived webcasts of the six forums held to date, as well as additional information about them, are available on a dedicated Web site, http://presidentialforums.health08.org.

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.

• Additional
• References
• Citations