Obama releases new ad criticizing McCain on health insurance regulation

Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) on Monday released an advertisement that criticized Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) for his views on health care and an article in which he discusses regulation of the health insurance market, the Boston Globe's "Political Intelligence" reports (Rhee, "Political Intelligence," Boston Globe, 9/22).

The ad states, "We've seen what Bush-McCain policies have done to our economy. Now John McCain wants to do the same to our health care. McCain just published an article praising Wall Street deregulation. Said he'd reduce oversight of the health insurance industry, too. Just 'as we have done over the last decade in banking.' Increasing costs and threatening coverage. A prescription for disaster. John McCain. A risk we just can't afford to take" (Kurtz, "The Trail," Washington Post, 9/22).

Analysis

According to the Washington Post's "The Trail," the ad is "based on John McCain's own words" from the article, and "although those words are subject to interpretation," McCain "certainly sounds like the strong advocate of deregulation he has always been." The recent publication of the article "makes McCain sound like he is defending the loosening of federal rules on banks, now widely blamed for the Wall Street turmoil that has led President Bush to propose a $700 billion bailout of the banking and credit industries," the Post's "The Trail" reports. "The Trail" adds that "there is no evidence that McCain is 'threatening coverage' for health care."

The McCain campaign "contends that the Republican nominee was referring only to the regulatory change that allowed banks to operate across state lines," but "because the article does not specify what he has in mind, McCain leaves himself vulnerable to the charge that he endorsed the full sweep of banking deregulation," according to the Post's "The Trail" ("The Trail," Washington Post, 9/22). The ad "makes a leap in drawing implicit parallels between Mr. McCain's health care proposals and the deregulation of the banking sector and then tying the deregulation to the financial crisis," a connection rejected by the McCain campaign, the New York Times' "The Caucus" reports (Falcone, "The Caucus," New York Times, 9/23).

The ad is available online.

NPR's "All Things Considered" on Monday reported on the ad. The segment includes comments from Obama, McCain, McCain senior economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Oklahoma Insurance Commissioner Kim Holland and Iowa Insurance Commissioner Susan Voss (Rovner, "All Things Considered," NPR, 9/22).

Effects of Economic Downturn

Obama and McCain do not plan to make changes to their health care proposals in response to the current economic downturn, health care advisers to their campaigns said on Monday during an America's Health Insurance Plans conference in Washington, D.C., CQ HealthBeat reports.

During the conference, Obama adviser Dora Hughes said that Obama "has always viewed health care issues as part of the economic challenges facing everyday families and to the extent we talk about ways to adjust (to) the economic crisis health will have to be part of the solution." She added that "we still need to move ahead," while acknowledging that the financial impact of the proposed bailout poses a "tremendous challenge."

McCain adviser Jay Khosla said that health care is a "top priority" for McCain. He said, "I want you all to understand how important health care is for Sen. McCain," adding, "We are not going to marginalize the importance of health care reform." In addition, Khosla said that McCain would use Medicare to test possible changes to the broader health care system (Reichard, CQ HealthBeat, 9/22).

The Politico reports that Obama said in an interview Tuesday that the cost of the financial bailout may lead him to scale back plans for health care and other issues. "Does that mean that I can do everything that I've called for in this campaign right away?" Obama asked on NBC's Today show. "Probably not. I think we're going to have to phase it in. And a lot of it's going to depend on what our tax revenues look like," he said (Allen, The Politico, 9/23).

Health Care Costs

Obama and McCain have announced proposals to expand health insurance to more U.S. residents, but "neither candidate has focused publicly on treating the real problem: why American medical care costs too much and isn't as good as it should be," the Chicago Tribune reports.

According to the Tribune, the U.S. wastes money on unnecessary tests, physician visits, technologies and treatments that add only a few weeks or months to the lives of terminally ill patients. The U.S. also fails to encourage the use of preventive care, which can improve the health of patients and reduce costs, and conduct research to determine the most cost-effective treatments, the Tribune reports. "As a result, Americans pay significantly more for medical care than anyone else in the industrialized world," and "we trail several other nations in health care quality, access and efficiency," according to the Tribune.

Advisers to Obama and McCain have said that the candidates have proposals to reduce health care costs, but "they aren't selling voters on the dramatic need for change," the Tribune reports (Tankersley/Parsons, Chicago Tribune, 9/23).

Medicare, Medicaid Fraud

Obama on Monday during a campaign event in Green Bay, Wis., said that as president he would seek to reduce waste and fraud in Medicare and Medicaid, CQ HealthBeat reports. According to a summary of proposals released by his campaign on Monday, Obama would increase authority for the HHS inspector general to fight fraud, implement anti-fraud measures in contracts awarded by CMS, expand Medicare and Medicaid audits, strengthen the False Claims Act, encourage states to fight fraud and increase funds for efforts by Department of Justice prosecutors and FBI agents to fight fraud.

He said, "We should also stop sending $15 billion a year in overpayments to insurance companies for Medicare and go after tens of billions of dollars in Medicare and Medicaid fraud." In addition, Obama said that he would take action against the 27,000 health care providers who participate in Medicare and owe more than $2 billion in unpaid taxes this year (CQ HealthBeat, 9/22).