Opinion Pieces Discuss Health Care Proposals of Major Presidential Candidates

Two newspapers recently published opinion pieces that address the health care proposals of the two major presidential candidates. Summaries appear below.

• Malinda Markowitz, Miami Herald: The health care proposal of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) "won't come close to solving" the U.S. health care "crisis," Markowitz, president of the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association, writes in a Herald opinion piece. McCain has proposed to replace a tax break for employees who receive health insurance from employers with a refundable tax credit of as much as $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families to purchase private coverage, but the amount of those credits represents "less than half of the cost of average premiums now, not counting all the copays, deductibles and other ATM style fees," according to Markowitz. According to Markowitz, although McCain has proposed to expand high-risk health insurance pools to help residents who cannot obtain private health insurance because of pre-existing medical conditions or no previous group coverage, the New York Times, in a "devastating recent critique," reported that such pools "are largely a failure." She writes, "Almost all impose long waiting periods, up to a year, before allowing you to enroll, and all have very high costs for getting in," adding, "Moreover, McCain has no proposal to pay for a federal expansion of this train wreck." In addition, McCain has proposed to deregulate the health insurance industry to increase competition, but "insurers compete by lowering their own costs, through denial of care, reducing services or price gouging," according to Markowitz. Meanwhile, although the health care proposal of presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) "would have more impact, with more subsidies for low- and middle-income families and tougher oversight of the insurers," the plan "still gives insurers too much control over our health," Markowitz writes, adding, "There's a better way." She concludes that the passage of a bill (HR 676) designed to "strengthen and expand Medicare" to all residents "should be at the top of the agenda for the next president" (Markowitz, Miami Herald, 7/24).
  
  
• Zach Rebackoff, South Florida Sun-Sentinel: The Obama health care proposal "encompasses almost every area at issue and certainly appears to have the American people, finally, up front and taking center stage," but the "problem I see is that the plan is just that, a plan, and that in itself does not make it a foregone conclusion if he's elected, as he would want you to believe," columnist Rebackoff writes in a Sun-Sentinel opinion piece. The proposal "is just a bunch of encouraging words on paper, with elastic corners abound," he writes, adding, "It looks good but doesn't spell R-E-L-I-E-F." Rebackoff writes, "Our system is so thick with politics, lobbyists and contributions that not one idea or plan can become reality unless ... the lawmakers ... are held accountable every day of the week and answer directly to us, every hour of the day." He writes, "Personally, I don't see anything wrong with Obama, McCain or any other politician changing their minds on issues, or 'flip-flopping' as they call it," adding, "Isn't that why Congress debates, to have our representatives listen to various voices of reason, from both sides of the issue?" He concludes, "If no one is going to change their mind, what are they bloviating about?" (Rebackoff, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 7/23).