Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report Highlights Recent Presidential Campaign News

Summaries of developments related to health care in the presidential election appear below.

• NFIB campaign: Reuters last week examined a multimillion-dollar campaign launched earlier this month by the National Federation of Independent Business that will ask presidential and congressional candidates to address the concerns of small businesses in their health care proposals. As part of the campaign, NFIB has sent letters to the three major presidential candidates and has held town hall meetings with members nationwide. NFIB opposes health care proposals that would require small businesses to offer health insurance to employees or pay into a federal fund to provide coverage, and supports plans that would allow small businesses to join pools to purchase coverage. NFIB, which has not taken a position on proposals that would require all U.S. residents to obtain health insurance, last week held a briefing to address the issue (Dixon, Reuters, 3/20).
  
  A webcast of the NFIB briefing is available online at kaisernetwork.org.
  
  
• Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz): Four fellows of the Center for American Progress Action Fund on Friday during a breakfast with reporters criticized the health care and economic proposals of presumptive Republican presidential nominee McCain, the Post reports. Two of the fellows, Peter Harbage and Jeanne Lambrew, questioned whether the McCain health care proposal would expand access to high-quality health insurance and noted similarities with the proposals of President Bush. McCain adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin called the comparison between the McCain and Bush proposals unfair, as the McCain plan would provide refundable tax credits to help low-income individuals and families purchase health insurance rather than a deduction as Bush has proposed (Eilperin, "The Trail," Washington Post, 3/23).

Opinion Pieces
Summaries of several opinion pieces related to health care in the presidential election appear below.

• Karl Manheim/Jamie Court, Los Angeles Times: "Before the candidates get too far in their health insurance proposals," they should "consider the constitutional and policy implications of requiring Americans" to purchase health insurance from private companies, Manheim, a professor of law at Loyola Law School, and Court, chair of Consumer Watchdog, write in a Los Angeles Times opinion piece. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) has proposed to require all residents to obtain health insurance, and Obama has proposed to require coverage only for children. The authors write that an individual health insurance mandate is "certainly unprecedented" and that the federal government does not "ordinarily require Americans" to purchase certain products from private companies. Under the law, "there is a big difference" between participation in a "government health program funded by taxes" and "privatizing such a program, with individuals forced to purchase private health insurance," the authors write. They add that an individual mandate is "essentially a forced contract" and might "constitute a violation of due process or a 'taking of property.'" According to the authors, "Government-funded insurance (such as Medicare or single-payer insurance) or regulation and tax subsidies to encourage voluntary participation (as in Obama's plan) are both more efficient in containing costs" and "avoid the slippery slope of unconstitutional mandates" (Manheim/Court, Los Angeles Times, 3/24).
  
  
• Eric Larson, Seattle Times: Presidential candidates "rarely" address the "fundamental question: How can everyone, including the currently uninsured, get better care -- without more money being spent?" Larson, executive director of the Center for Health Studies at the Group Health Cooperative, writes in a Seattle Times opinion piece. The U.S. health care system is "built on the wrong incentives," under which physicians, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and others "stand to make big money by providing care that's excessive, inappropriate or likely to do more harm than good," Larson writes. "Solutions will come only" after lawmakers and health industry leaders "realize that unfettered market forces will not fix the nation's health care woes," he writes, adding, "Tinkering with finance mechanisms alone won't solve these problems." Larson writes, "We need a system based on primary care, where doctors are encouraged to coordinate services, manage chronic conditions and educate patients on self-care strategies that prevent illness." As the health care debate "intensifies, I urge you to listen for such broad-based solutions -- those that address the root causes of costs increases and deficiencies in quality," Larson writes (Larson, Seattle Times, 3/21).
  
  
• Holtz-Eakin, Washington Post: McCain has proposed "comprehensive health care reforms that would change the practice of medicine to reward quality, high-value care," as well as tax credits and "insurance market reforms" to "stop the erosion of health insurance," Holtz-Eakin writes in a Post opinion piece. Such proposals would "attack spiraling costs, ease pressure on family budgets, permit firms to pay better wages and reduce the number of the uninsured," according to Holtz-Eakin (Holtz-Eakin, Washington Post, 3/24).
  
  
• Gene Sperling, Washington Post: Clinton "supports policies that empower Americans directly to achieve greater economic security and upward mobility," such as a "health care tax credit that goes directly to you" and a "$1,000 matching tax cut that goes directly to your savings account," Clinton policy adviser Sperling writes in a Post opinion piece. He adds, "The ultimate test of our long-term economic policies" are the wages, jobs, health care and "economic mobility of typical and too often 'invisible' American families" (Sperling, Washington Post, 3/24).