Advisers to Major Presidential Candidates Discuss Health Care Proposals at Forum in New Jersey

The top health care advisers to the two major presidential candidates on Tuesday at an event in Newark, N.J., "outlined vastly different ways to treat a national health system hit with spiraling costs, waste and 47 million uninsured" U.S. residents, the Newark Star-Ledger reports.

During the event, sponsored by Rutgers Business School, David Cutler, a Harvard University economist and adviser to presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), said that the Obama health care proposal would seek to allow "individuals and small businesses to pool together and get the same plans that big businesses can get" and mandate that health insurers could not reject applicants because of pre-existing medical conditions (Campbell, Newark Star-Ledger, 7/16).

He said, "It (the U.S. health care system) is really bad and getting worse. It is dysfunctional and falling apart. What do you need to fix the most? You basically need three things. One, is you need to cover everybody. Second, you need to improve the value of what you're getting for what you spend. And third, you need to have a public health system that actually works" (Reuters, 7/15).

According to Cutler, the proposal would cost $50 billion to $60 billion annually and would be financed through the elimination of tax cuts for higher-income residents (Newark Star-Ledger, 7/16). He said, "Overall, what we're proposing is going to save corporate America a lot of money and individuals a lot of money" through the program, adding, "We believe that we can save 8% of medical spending," or about $200 billion annually (Reuters, 7/15).

McCain Proposal
Gail Wilensky, a senior fellow at Project HOPE and adviser to presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), said that the McCain health care proposal would seek to reduce regulation and government intervention and increase individual responsibility (Newark Star-Ledger, 7/16). She said, "Our health care system is in great need of health and help. We have unsustainable health care spending, patient safety and clinical appropriateness problems, and -- the part that people mostly focus on -- 47 million people without insurance coverage" (Reuters, 7/15).

According to Wilensky, the proposal would allow employers to continue to provide health insurance to employees or increase salaries to allow workers to purchase individual coverage (Newark Star-Ledger, 7/16). She said, "It's not really so much letting the market take care of it. It's letting individuals be able to choose the kind of health care plans that meet their health care needs. ... I can't imagine most large employers not continuing to offer health insurance plans for the foreseeable future. Ten or 20 years down the road, who knows?" (Reuters, 7/15).

Wilensky added that the proposal would provide federal subsidies for high-risk health insurance pools to help individuals who cannot obtain private coverage because of pre-existing medical conditions or no previous group coverage at a cost of about $10 billion annually (Newark Star-Ledger, 7/16).

Swing State Surveys
"Health Care and the Economy in Two Swing States: A Look at Ohio and Florida," NPR/Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard School of Public Health: Two new surveys by NPR, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health examine financial challenges facing people in two presidential swing states, Florida and Ohio, including difficulties paying for gas, finding and keeping a well-paying job and affording health care. The telephone surveys involved statewide representative samples of 1,358 adults in Florida and 1,201 adults in Ohio and were conducted between May 21 and June 4. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points, but may be higher for subgroups. The surveys provide an in-depth look at how medical bills affect family finances and health care and examine how such costs affect people's daily life decisions. NPR is reporting findings from the surveys on "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered" beginning on Wednesday (Kaiser Family Foundation release, 7/16).