AMA To Triple Spending for Campaign To Promote Issue of Uninsured in Presidential Election

The American Medical Association plans to triple spending on a campaign to promote the issue of the uninsured in the presidential election, the Chicago Tribune reports. AMA this year plans to spend a total of $15 million on the Voice for the Uninsured campaign, compared with $5 million spent from the launch of the initiative in August 2007 to the end of the year.

This month, television advertisements for the campaign began to air on cable news and entertainment broadcasts. In future months, the campaign will include national print ads in daily and weekly newspapers and news magazines, as well as ads on news Web sites. According to Samantha Rosman, a pediatrician and AMA board member, "By November, millions of Americans will have heard the AMA's concern that one in seven of us is uninsured, and they will have heard our call to voters to cast their ballots with the issue of the uninsured in mind."

AMA supports a proposal that would provide vouchers or tax credits to help low-income uninsured U.S. residents purchase health insurance as part of an effort to expand coverage to all residents. The proposal also would revise the allocation of government funds to help uninsured and low-income residents purchase health insurance.

Rosman said, "Under the AMA proposal, those who need it most will receive financial assistance to purchase health insurance" (Japsen, Chicago Tribune, 1/17).

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

• Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.): Clinton has begun to promote a "super-sized approach to problem-solving" that includes her proposal to expand health insurance to all U.S. residents, Long Island Newsday reports. During her campaign, Clinton has proposed a total of about $800 billion in spending for domestic programs during her first four-year term as president and has said that she plans to fund the programs in part through the elimination of tax cuts for households with annual incomes of at least $200,000. According to Clinton economic adviser Gene Sperling, "At our first meeting on health care reform at her house in D.C., she told us, 'We're not going to go through this whole process unless we're planning big things.'" Her campaign has "opened her up to scathing criticism" from Republicans, who have called her a "hypocrite" because she has proposed such spending but has called herself the most fiscally responsible Democratic candidate, according to Newsday (Thrush, Long Island Newsday, 1/17).
  
  
• Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.): Obama has launched a new television ad in Nevada that focuses on his proposal to expand health insurance coverage, the AP/New York Times reports. In the ad, Obama says, "I'll be the president who finally makes health care affordable to every single American by bringing Democrats and Republicans together." The 30-second ad features a May 29, 2007, Associated Press headline that stated, "Obama offers universal health care plan." However, the article "did not represent Obama's plan as universal health care," according to the AP/Times analysis of the ad. The original article stated, "Obama's first promise as a presidential candidate was that he would sign a universal health care plan into law by the end of his first term in the White House." The article added, "But there is some dispute over whether his plan would provide universal care -- it's aimed at lowering costs so all Americans can afford insurance but does not guarantee everyone would buy it" (AP/New York Times, 1/16).
  
  
• Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.): "More than any of his rivals," McCain is "speaking directly to veterans" in South Carolina during campaign events and in ads that "stress veterans health care," the AP/Times reports (AP/New York Times, 1/17). During his campaign, McCain has proposed that veterans receive a health insurance card they can use for routine visits at any health care provider (Frangos, Wall Street Journal, 1/17). According to the AP/Times, although McCain, a decorated war veteran, "seems like a natural presidential pick" for veterans in South Carolina, the "veteran vote is just not that simple," as the economy and health care "are factors for military retirees." Veterans who have concerns about the economy and health care "have to consider" Clinton, for her efforts to obtain health care for National Guard members, and Obama, for his ads that promote a proposal to reduce the cost of prescription drugs (AP/New York Times, 1/17). Veterans accounted for 27% of the voters in the 2000 South Carolina Republican primary (Wall Street Journal, 1/17).