Democratic Vice Presidential Nominee Biden discusses health care proposal of GOP Presidential Nominee McCain

Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Joseph Biden (Del.) on Tuesday during a campaign event in Mehlville, Mo., said that Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) as president would place employer-sponsored health insurance at risk, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.

McCain has proposed to replace an income 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 for the purchase of private coverage.

He said, "For the first time in American history, they want to tax your health care benefits," adding, "I am not making this up." In addition, he said that the McCain proposal would prompt employers to drop health insurance for employees. Biden also said that the U.S. government has "a moral obligation" to ensure access to affordable health insurance for all residents.

According to the Post-Dispatch, "Biden's assertion" about the McCain proposal marked the "most direct Democratic attack yet on what is expected to be a prime target in the next two months: the McCain proposal to tax employer-provided health care benefits" (Mannies, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 9/10).

McCain Proposal Would 'Create Chaos,' Medco CEO Says

Meanwhile, Medco Health Solutions CEO David Snow on Tuesday at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., said that the McCain health care proposal would "create chaos," Bloomberg/Bergen Record reports. Snow said, "I'm very frightened of the conversations that try to shift responsibility away from employers to individuals," adding, "There will be more uninsured."

Snow said that the health care proposal of Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) also would pose problems, adding that he is "not a big supporter of either" candidate.

In an effort to reduce health care costs, Snow said that lawmakers should seek to promote the adoption of electronic health records, limit medical liability lawsuits, encourage patients to follow recommendations from their physicians, promote healthier lifestyles and reform Medicare. He said, "We can't do this overnight," adding, "Change has to be evolutionary, not revolutionary" (Marcus, Bloomberg/Bergen Record, 9/10).

Health Care Panel Discussion To Precede Presidential Debate in Nashville

The Nashville Health Care Council, a program of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce -- will host a panel discussion on the health care proposals of the candidates on the day of the Oct. 7 presidential debate, the Tennessean reports. The roundtable will take place at the Vanderbilt Marriott Hotel in Nashville, Tenn., near Belmont University, the site of the debate. According to NHCC spokesperson Judith Byrd, the panel will offer "an analysis of what the candidates are saying and which elements of health care reform the candidates are choosing to address." The panel will include former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.); Chris Jennings, a senior health care adviser to former President Bill Clinton; Dick Morris, manager of the Clinton campaign in 1996; John Podesta, former chief of staff for Clinton; Chip Kahn, president of the Federation of American Hospitals; and a former congressional health care adviser (Sledge, Tennessean, 9/10).

Editorial, Opinion Pieces

Summaries of a recent editorial and two opinion pieces that address health care issues in the presidential election appear below.

• Billings Gazette: "With Barack Obama and John McCain touting different paths to health care reform, opportunity for changing the system should arise next year," and Medicare "needs to be changed" to include an "independent entity to sponsor credible research on the comparative effectiveness or health care services and disseminate that information to Americans who provide care, receive care and pay for care," a Gazette editorial states. According to the editorial, "quality must not be left to discretion and inconsistent application." The editorial concludes, "Scientifically valid comparisons of treatments and public information on those comparisons should be a cornerstone of reform" (Billings Gazette, 9/9).
• Jacob Hacker, Seattle Times: "If you want to understand the debate over economic policy our nation should be having -- but mostly isn't -- look no further than Barack Obama's and John McCain's health plans," Hacker, a political science professor at the University of California-Berkeley, writes in a Times opinion piece. According to Hacker, Obama has said that the U.S. must "tackle rising health and economic insecurity together, even if it means an increased government role," and McCain has said that health care and "economic insecurity should be handled by individuals on their own, with relatively limited government help." Hacker writes, "These are radically different approaches, and they sum up the two parties' divergent economic philosophies," although "media attention to the candidates' health plans has portrayed the struggle as mostly a difference of priorities -- covering Americans (Obama) vs. containing costs (McCain) -- rather than an epic battle over competing ideals." He adds, "All Americans need security to achieve opportunity," and "Obama needs to tell voters how he will provide it and why McCain's very different economic vision will not." Hacker concludes, "Health care is the place to begin" (Hacker, Seattle Times, 9/9).
• Robert Samuelson, Washington Post: The view of the majority of U.S. residents that health care is a "right" is "completely understandable" but "utterly wrong," Post columnist Samuelson writes. He adds, "The central health care problem is not improving coverage. It's controlling costs," as currently health care accounts for $1 of every $6 spent in the U.S. economy. "It is widely assumed that health care, like most aspects of American life, shamefully shortchanges the poor," Samuelson writes, adding, "This is less true than it seems," as public programs provide health insurance for more than one-fourth of U.S. residents. Samuelson writes, "The trouble with casting medical care as a 'right' is that this ignores how open-ended the 'right' should be and how fulfilling it might compromise other 'rights' and needs." He adds, "What makes people healthy or unhealthy are personal habits, good or bad (diet, exercise, alcohol and drug use); genetic makeup, lucky or unlucky; and age," and health care, "no matter how lavishly provided, can only partly compensate for these individual differences" (Samuelson, Washington Post, 9/10).