Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report Highlights Recent Opinion Pieces Addressing Health Care, Presidential Election

Summaries of several opinion pieces that address health care issues in the presidential election appear below.

• Alan Leshner, Philadelphia Inquirer: "Even though science-related issues are crucial to so many aspects of modern American life," they are "grabbing virtually none of the national limelight" in the presidential election, Alan Leshner, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and executive publisher of the journal Science, writes in an Inquirer opinion piece. Leshner proposes several questions, some of which relate to health care, that the Democratic candidates should answer during a debate focused on science issues scheduled for April 18 at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. According to Leshner, the candidates should answer whether they would support the use of federal funding for stem cell research that involves "human embryos left over after invitro fertilization processes." The candidates also should answer questions about the role of the federal government in research on "nanobots" that "might someday be implanted into our bodies to repair cell damage and genetic technologies that "might push the human lifespan past 120 years," Leshner writes (Leshner, Philadelphia Inquirer, 3/17).
  
  
• William Murchison, Washington Times: The U.S. population "as a whole" is aging, and Medicaid and Medicare likely will "commandeer 50% of the federal budget" by 2025, syndicated columnist Murchison writes in a Times opinion piece. According to Murchison, Medicare and Social Security trustees have estimated that the two programs will have to pay "$87.9 trillion more in future benefits" than they expect to receive in revenue. He writes, "The geezer problem ... ranks up there with the country's leading challenges," and significant "reform is going to first involve significant leadership," followed by "controversial proposals" that would "allow and help Americans to put money aside for their own needs in private, tax-exempt or tax-deferred accounts." He adds, "There's simply no plausible alternative to the disaster of running through, and then some, such money as government designates to pay promised benefits." Presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) "would bring to the presidency unique resources for solving the monstrous problem that lies just down the road," according to Murchison (Murchison, Washington Times, 3/15).
  
  
• Steve Chapman, Chicago Tribune: None of the presidential candidates "is ready for the 8 a.m. call from the budget director reporting that the deficit is raging out of control," in part because of the cost of entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, columnist Chapman writes in a Tribune opinion piece. According to a recent report by the Brookings Institution, federal taxes would have to increase by one-third by 2030 to fund Medicare, Chapman writes. He adds, "To avoid such tax increases without cutting" Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security, "our leaders would have to make cuts of 50% or more in all other federal programs." He writes, "Clearly, some hard fiscal decisions will have to be made," but "you would never know any of this from listening" to presidential candidates, who act "as though we've time to kill and money to burn" (Chapman, Chicago Tribune, 3/16).
  
  
• South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R), Wall Street Journal: The U.S. "stands at a fiscal crossroads," in part because of the cost of entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, and the "presidential election offers us a real choice in how to address the fiscal mess," Sanford writes in a Journal opinion piece. According to Sanford, when the national debt is added to "Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security commitments, the U.S. is "staring at more than a $50 trillion hole." A "yawning gulf" exists between the positions of McCain and the Democratic candidates on fiscal issues, Sanford writes, adding that in McCain, the "GOP has a standard-bearer who would be willing to turn the power of the presidency toward controlling federal spending" (Sanford, Wall Street Journal, 3/15).