Presumptive Democratic Presidential Nominee Obama Discusses Single-Payer Health Care System

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) earlier this week during a town hall meeting on the economy in Albuquerque, N.M., discussed prospects for the implementation of a single-payer health care system over time, the Wall Street Journal's "Washington Wire" reports. He said, "If I were designing a system from scratch, I would probably go ahead with a single-payer system."

However, during a roundtable discussion with women on Monday morning, Obama said, "You've got a whole system of institutions that have been set up," adding, "People don't have time to wait. They need relief now. So my attitude is let's build up the system we got, let's make it more efficient, we may be over time -- as we make the system more efficient and everybody's covered -- decide that there are other ways for us to provide care more effectively."

According to the Journal's "Washington Wire," many "liberals have long embraced" a single-payer health care system, "saying it would cover everyone, take the profit out of health insurance and allow for greater efficiencies," but "Republicans cringe at such deep government involvement in the private sector, calling it socialized medicine." Obama's plan would create a government-sponsored marketplace where people could purchase coverage, either from private insurance plans or a new public plan like Medicare (Chozick, "Washington Wire," Wall Street Journal, 8/19).

Editorial, Opinion Piece
Summaries of a recent editorial and opinion piece that addressed health care issues in the presidential election appear below.

• Rochester Democrat & Chronicle: "Harry and Louise" have returned in a new advertising campaign, and, "rather than rallying against reform" of the health care system, "they will actually push for it," a Democrat & Chronicle editorial states. In 1994, health insurers launched an ad campaign that featured "Harry and Louise" to help defeat the health care plan of former President Bill Clinton and then-First Lady Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), but the new campaign will ask the two major presidential candidates to make health care their top domestic priority, the editorial states. According to the editorial, since the ads first aired, the "health care situation in this country has gotten worse," and, "even though the nation is just three months away from electing a new president, not nearly as much attention has been focused on health care reform as it deserves." The editorial states, "Harry and Louise were effective in shooting down the Clinton plan, raising fears about government red tape," but whether they will "be as effective in prodding the nation to get sensible health care reform done" remains uncertain (Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, 8/20).
  
  
• Chris Farrell, Business Week: The "fiscal policy dispute" between Obama and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) "has focused too much on tax regimes and not enough on the real challenge: health care," Farrell, a contributing economics editor for Business Week, writes in an opinion piece. He writes, "When it comes to domestic, nonmilitary fiscal policy in the new millennium, everything is dwarfed by health care." According to Farrell, the "crucial long-term fiscal problem facing the U.S. and its aging population is health care spending," and "what happens to taxes will largely be shaped by changes in the health insurance market." Medicare spending accounted for 2.7% of the U.S. gross domestic product in 2005 and will account for 11% by 2080, he writes. In addition, total "health care spending in the U.S. by both public and private sources is expected to expand from 16% of GDP to 40% of GDP in 2040," according to Farrell. "The pressure to reform America's broken-down, balkanized health care system isn't going to disappear," he writes, adding, "Follow that debate, and you'll come to grips with what really matters when it comes to taxes and budget deficits" (Farrell, Business Week, 8/19).
  

Broadcast Coverage
CBS' "Evening News" on Tuesday reported on the new ad campaign that features "Harry and Louise." The segment includes comments from Karen Ignagni, president and CEO of America's Health Insurance Plans and Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA (Andrews, "Evening News," CBS, 8/19).

In addition, C-SPAN on Tuesday broadcast a news conference hosted by the sponsors of the ad campaign (C-SPAN, 8/19).