Washington Post Reports Next President Likely To Have ‘Tough Time’ With Efforts To Finance Health Care, Other Proposals

The major presidential candidates have made a number of promises on health care and other issues in their campaign speeches, but whoever "wins the White House this fall ... is likely to have a tough time enacting expensive new initiatives" because "tax collections are slowing, the budget deficit is rising and the national debt is approaching $10 trillion," the Washington Post reports. According to the Post, at the end of the fiscal year, the federal deficit will reach an estimated record high of $400 billion, and, without "major policy changes, Medicare and Medicaid are projected to devour half of all federal spending by 2050."

An analysis recently conducted by the Tax Policy Center found that the tax proposals of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) would reduce federal revenue by almost $900 billion during his first term. "That analysis excludes some expensive proposals, including promises to close the gap in prescription drug coverage for Medicare recipients (estimated to cost about $400 billion over 10 years)" and to "introduce government-funded health insurance for the uninsured (which the campaign estimates would cost as much as $65 billion a year)," among others, according to the Post.

The analysis also found that the tax proposals of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) would reduce federal revenue by more than $1.1 trillion during his first term. However, McCain has promised to "balance the budget ... by slashing spending projections for troops abroad, domestic programs and health care -- reductions unlikely to pass muster with a Democratic Congress" -- and has discussed the "need to reform Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid since the race began," the Post reports (Montgomery, Washington Post, 6/21).

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

• Gov. Janet Napolitano (D-Ariz.)/Gov. Martin O'Malley (D-Md.), The Politico: "On Thursday, the nation's Democratic governors will gather in Chicago, united in one common goal: to bring real change and a new direction to our nation's capital" on health care and other issues, Napolitano and O'Malley write in an opinion piece in The Politico. They add, "The stakes in this election are enormously high and, as governors, we know all too well how urgently change is needed in this country -- the kind of change Barack Obama will bring" -- with increased health care costs among a number of "close-to-home issues confronting working people." In the past eight years, the "Bush administration has conducted an unprecedented assault on effective governance by ignoring states' rights," such as the case of SCHIP, as "this administration vetoed a bipartisan effort to extend the program to cover more uninsured children," the authors write. In addition, "with no input from states, the Bush administration -- supported by John McCain -- unilaterally and stealthily changed federal rules to cost-shift to state taxpayers $50 billion in Medicaid services over the next five years, robbing teaching hospitals of critical funding and cutting health services provided at schools, including services for special needs students," according to the authors. "Our nation cannot withstand a repeat of the past eight years," and, although the "change Barack Obama talks about starts in Washington, D.C. ... it will have tremendous impact in every state in the union," they write, adding, "His good-faith partnership with states on this critical priority -- in concert with his plan for universal health care -- will heal our broken health care system and will ensure that every American finally has access to high-quality, affordable care" (Napolitano/O'Malley, The Politico, 6/19).
  
  
• Michael Kazin/Julian Zelizer, Washington Post: "For the first time since 1964, Democrats have a good chance not just to win the White House and a majority in Congress but to enact a sweeping new liberal agenda" on health care and other issues, Kazin, a Georgetown University history professor, and Zelizer, a Princeton University history and public affairs professor, write in a Post opinion piece. They add, "The long Democratic primary battle masks the fact that the party faithful agree on the basic outlines of a new social contract" that includes proposals to "help citizens whose economic welfare has been threatened by the rising cost of health care" and other problems. Obama "favors two big programs that no Democrat before him could realize: a national health plan that would cut costs and cover every citizen and a sizable tuition grant to college students who sign up for national service," the authors write (Kazin/Zelizer, Washington Post, 6/22).
  
  
• James Edwards, Washington Times: Issues such as the economy and the war in Iraq "could well overshadow health care in the 2008 campaign," although a "health care battle is brewing," Edwards, an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute, writes in a Times opinion piece. He adds, "Leading proposals to refashion health care would threaten many things that are good about America's health care." According to Edwards, the Obama health care proposal might "sound great," but "you have to read the fine print and look where 'universal' coverage has been tried." He adds, "For all the talk of fixing health care, those pushing the United States in the direction of Canada and other socialized nations would inflict a cure worse than the disease." Edwards writes, "When candidates talk in generalities about health care, the American people should nail them down on the details," adding, "They should pin the politicians until they cry 'uncle' and agree to let market forces fix what ails the health care system." Edwards concludes, "Government-run health care is not a solution, much less the solution" (Edwards, Washington Times, 6/22).