Issue #1: National health insurance
Each day this week, I plan to look at one of the key issues for America in the 2008 election and tell you what the leading or most interesting candidates have said about it. So here goes
1. National health insurance. America needs a single-payer system like that of France, funded by general tax revenues. It will cover everyone, working or unemployed, and you can never lose it. Yes, taxes will have to rise, but since neither you nor your employer will be forking over suitcases of cash to private insurance companies, you may not even notice it. Private health insurance companies must disappear. Call this the "peace of mind" plan.
Democrats:
Hillary Clinton: Best known for the failed Clinton health plan in 1992, which had it been enacted into law might have solved many of the nation's healthcare problems. She and her advisers over-reached and got sandbagged by the insurance industry. Her plan today would have private insurance plans competing with an expanded Medicare plan available to all citizens. If you like your current insurance, you can stay with it--assuming your employer doesn't discontinue the plan. Tax credits to "working Americans" to help buy coverage. No denials allowed for pre-existing conditions. Tax credits to help individuals and small businesses purchase health insurance. Most likely plan to be adopted by a Democratic Congress. Vague on employer participation.
Barack Obama: Modified Hillary plan. Would expand the Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan into a national plan available to all. Would require businesses to make a "meaningful" contribution to health insurance for their employees.
John Edwards: Modified Hillary plan, although his plan is actually said to be the model for that of Clinton and Obama.
Dennis Kucinich: Only candidate to support a single-payer national health insurance system. Kucinich believes elimination of the administrative overhead spending of health insurance companies would free up enough money to create an American national health insurance plan without much of a tax increase. Administrative expenses are a huge amount, as much as 31 percent of the healthcare dollar. If I was voting on this issue alone, Kucinich would get my vote. Hopefully he'll end up in an important cabinet position in the next Democratic administration.
Republicans:
Rudolph Guiliani: Guiliani got burned recently when he tried to argue that prostate cancer outcomes under single-payer national health insurance plans were significantly worse than under the American system. People who actually understand this issue quickly set him straight, but he refuses to retract his statement. In general, Guiliani is opposed to "socialized" medicine. Otherwise, his plan is basicly Hillary Lite, but very vague on how much help working Americans would receive. Would end "frivolous" medical liability lawsuits, something no one has ever been able to define, let alone accomplish.
John McCain: like several of the candidates, McCain advocates allowing families to "be in charge of their health care dollars and have more control over their care." These are code words for ending the system of employer-paid health insurance, a major goal of movement conservatives. You want health insurance? Go buy it yourself. No word on whether employers would get to pocket the money they now spend on behalf of employees to buy health insurance, which by rights belongs entirely to the employee. It's part of your compensation.
Mitt Romney: As governor of Massachusetts, signed the first state-level health insurance plan, which basicly requires companies to offer insurance to employees or pay a fee to the state if they don't. Individuals are required to buy insurance. Romney says individuals have a responsibility for their own health care and touts "insurance for everyone without a tax increase." Watch your wallet on this one.
Fred Thompson: "Americans have the best health care in the world." Actually, they don't. Most any industrialized nation with national health insurance, i.e., everyone but us, has better outcomes. Thompson is against a "one size fits all, Washington-controlled program." He vows to improve access to affordable health care without imposing new mandates or raising taxes. Good luck with that.
Mike Huckabee: Big advocate of moving from employer-paid health insurance to consumer-paid health insurance. He is against "socialized medicine" but speaks approvingly of European countries which spend 10 percent of their gross domestic product on their "socialized" health care compared to the 17 percent we spend in America. Message to Mike: they get to that 10 percent level by not having hundreds of private insurance companies.
Ron Paul: Paul is a doctor, a libertarian, a Republican, and a congressman from Texas. He supports an odd mix of free market and government solutions to the nation's health care crisis. He doesn't like insurance, especially Medicare and Medicaid. Needless to say, he opposes requiring employers to provide insurance for their employees. Voted against the Medicare prescription drug benefit, but voted in favor of requiring the federal government to negotiate drug prices for Medicare Part D with the pharmaceutical industry.