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Wednesday, 19 September 2007 |
Healthcare reform: how candidates stack up
by JAMISON DORAN
News Editor
I had the privilege over the summer to go see Michael Moore’s new movie SiCKO on opening day.
I have always been a fan of his movies and the messages he portrays, and I was sure that SiCKO would be no different – and it wasn’t.
In a nutshell, this new movie tackles America’s broken healthcare system and compares our system to the systems in other countries, including France, Britain and Cuba.
The
comparisons will practically leave you in need of a doctor once you
realize just how terrible our system is when compared to these other
countries.
The reason I bring this up now is because of the fact that Sen. Hillary
Clinton just added her name to the growing list of presidential
candidates who has outlined a plan for major healthcare reform in
America.
I had planned on outlining the healthcare stance of the top four
candidates in each party. However, out of the top four Republican
candidates (John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney)
only Romney and Thompson had anything on their Web sites that dealt
with healthcare.
In addition, I will look at the top three Democrats (Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards) and their healthcare plans.
Mitt Romney
Romney’s Web site dedication to all things healthcare is quite small
and he fails to give us an exact plan of what he’d like to see done.
His basic position is that Americans need to take responsibility for
their own healthcare and insurance, but he believes that everyone
should have insurance.
He proposes to be able to make this happen through market reforms and not through raising taxes.
I find this a little hard to swallow. I commend him for stepping up and
saying that all Americans deserve to have insurance, but to say that
it’s their responsibility is quite the cop-out.
Right now it is an American citizen’s responsibility to supply
themselves with their own insurance, and we see how well that’s working
out.
Fred Thompson
Thompson just threw his hat into the ring a couple of weeks ago so I
was surprised he already had a healthcare plan laid out, especially
since it’s taken Clinton months to announce hers.
Thompson’s plan is similar to Romney’s in the fact that he believes all
Americans should have access to affordable insurance, but he does not
want to raise taxes or make a universal healthcare system.
He takes a very small amount of time to address his plans for providing
cost effective insurance to Americans and uses the space instead to say
how we can improve our health by taking preventive
measures.
The Republican candidates obviously realize that in next year’s
election healthcare will be an important issue, so Thompson and Romney
were wise to at least address it.
However, I don’t feel either one gave a comprehensive solution to the problem.
Hillary Clinton
Clinton just announced her plan, and I was really curious to see what it encompassed.
She wants to provide working families with tax credits to help them cover their medical costs.
Clinton also wants to make insurance accessible to everyone, regardless
if you have a pre-existing condition, and she wants to make it
reliable. This means that if you lose your job you’ll still have your
insurance. Insurance won’t be based on whether or not you’re employed.
She also wants to provide numerous options to families so they can tailor a plan that is right for them.
I don’t see too many huge flaws with this plan, except it may be hard to implement at least initially.
I also find it interesting she did not use the words “universal
healthcare” anywhere in her proposal on her Web site. This is likely to
her failed attempt to give us universal healthcare in the early 1990s.
John Edwards
Edwards on the other hand does use the phrase universal healthcare and makes it clear that it’s goal.
Edwards wants to make sure every American is insured and wants to give them coverage at an affordable rate.
He would also like to require employers to cover their employees with health insurance or finance their health insurance.
Edwards would like to make tax credits and would also like to expand Medicaid to help make the transition better.
I personally like Edwards’ position better; I feel it’s a little more comprehensive.
However, all of these ideas look good on paper, but they may be extremely hard to implement once in office.
Barack Obama
While I may personally be biased in favor of Obama, I cannot bias the
fact that his Web site had the most information laid out about his
healthcare plan.
He had very extensive information.
Like everyone else, he wants to provide affordable healthcare for all
and he wants to create a national plan that everyone will be eligible
for. He would make sure that no one would be turned away for any
illnesses or pre-existing conditions.
Private insurance would still be available for those who want it, and
Obama hopes to lower costs by encouraging competition between insurance
and drug companies.
I liked Obama’s plan a lot and felt that he gave the most details as to what he’d like to see accomplished.
However, he gave no real ways on how he plans to pay for some of these changes, which could be an issue.
All in all, this
is an extremely important issue that the Democrats have really jumped
on board with and, out of all of them, I think Obama has by far the
best ideas, they’d just have to be put to practical use.
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