Advisers to presidential candidates Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) discussed the health care proposals of their respective candidates at a Washington, D.C., forum on Monday, CQ HealthBeat reports.

At the forum, sponsored by AcademyHealth, Obama adviser Gregg Bloche and Clinton adviser Chris Jennings discussed whether to require all residents to obtain health insurance, as well as differences between Democratic and Republican health proposals. Jennings criticized the Obama health care proposal, which would require health insurance for children but not adults. "All we're talking about is a false promise at the end of the day, and that would be a cruel hoax," he said. Bloche said that although Obama does not oppose a health insurance mandate, he believes that the U.S. should first attempt a more "modest" proposal to expand coverage, according to CQ HealthBeat.

According to McCain adviser Tom Miller, residents will not support either the Clinton or Obama health care proposals after they understand the cost of the plans. Expansion of health insurance to all residents "doesn't mean ordering your menu of ice cream and someone else pays for it," Miller said, adding, "The money has to come from somewhere, and it's likely to be you." Miller said that a McCain proposal to offer tax credits to help residents purchase health insurance and allow residents to purchase coverage across state lines would make the market more competitive and reduce costs.

In response, Bloche said that the McCain proposal is based on a "myth" that tax credits would cover the cost of health insurance for a family of four. He added, "Affordability is really a difficult subject reality for families sitting around the table" (Lubbes, CQ HealthBeat, 2/6).

A webcast of the forum is available online at kaisernetwork.

Editorial
The Clinton health care proposal is "really a government mandate that requires brute force plus huge subsidies to get anywhere near its goal of universal coverage," a Wall Street Journal editorial states.

According to the editorial, rather than discuss an enforcement mechanism for her health insurance mandate, Clinton is "more interested in wielding what she calls a 'core Democratic principle'" against Obama. Clinton claims that her health care proposal is "better because it has a mandate," but whether the plan would "work in the real world -- where some people still won't be able to afford insurance, or would decline to acquire it" -- remains undetermined, the editorial states.

Clinton "learned in 1994" that a "government health care takeover can only be achieved gradually and by stealth," but her latest proposal is "an attempt to force everyone to buy into a highly regulated price-controlled system where government redistributes income and dictates coverage," the editorial states, adding, "We assume the McCain campaign is paying attention" (Wall Street Journal, 2/7).

Opinion Piece
"It's a widespread fallacy" that "all bars to needed health care would disappear if we could just move from private insurance companies to government financing," syndicated columnist Jay Ambrose writes in the Washington Examiner. According to Ambrose, the "simple truth" is that "some sort of rationing is required when health care is provided mostly free beyond taxation" because residents would demand "huge, unaffordable, ultimately unavailable amounts of care."

He writes, "For the U.S. to convert to a like system would be on the order of a nuttiness that might be rectified by looking hard" at Medicare, which "consumes a huge percentage of the budget" and is now "in debt by an incredible $32 trillion." He adds that enrollment of all residents in Medicare or "something akin to it" would result in the "mother of all financial crises."

Ambrose writes that more "easily obtainable health insurance" is available through health savings accounts and tax credits for residents "at no or little additional cost." He concludes, "What's unneeded is a confused conviction" that "socialized medicine" would prove more effective than the current health care system, which, "however flawed, is in many ways better even prior to enhancements that would make insurance more nearly universal" (Ambrose, Washington Examiner, 2/7).

Reprinted with kind permission from kaisernetwork. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at kaisernetwork/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation© 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.