Democratic Presidential Candidates Clinton, Obama Discuss Health Care During Texas Debate

Democratic presidential candidates Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.) on Thursday discussed their health care proposals and other issues during a debate at the University of Texas-Austin, the Washington Post reports (Kornblut/Balz, Washington Post, 2/22).

According to Clinton, her proposal, which would require all U.S. residents to obtain health insurance, would ensure that all residents have coverage. She added that the Obama proposal, which would require health insurance only for children, would leave 15 million residents without coverage. Clinton said that, "when I proposed a universal health care plan ... we took a big risk because we know it's politically controversial to say we're going to cover everyone," adding that Obama "chose not to do that" (Luo, New York Times, 2/22).

Clinton said that, "if we don't go and require everyone to have health insurance, the health insurance industry will still game the system." In addition, she said, "Every one of us with insurance will pay the hidden tax of approximately $900 a year to make up for the lack of insurance" (Washington Post graphic, 2/22). Under the Obama proposal, "you will be nibbled to death, and we will be back here with more and more people uninsured and rising costs," Clinton said.

In response, Obama said, "Understand that both of us seek to get universal health care," but "I have a substantive difference with Senator Clinton on how to get there" (Washington Post, 2/22). He said that the "reason that people don't have [health insurance] is not because they don't want it but because they can't afford it" (New York Times, 2/22).

Obama also referenced Massachusetts, which recently implemented a law that requires residents to obtain health insurance (Washington Post, 2/22). "In order for you to force people to get health insurance, you've got to have a very harsh penalty," he said, adding, "In some cases, there are people who are paying fines" because they did not obtain coverage and "still can't afford it, so now they're worse off than they were" (Washington Post graphic, 2/22).

CNN, Univision and the Texas Democratic Party sponsored the debate, and it was moderated by Campbell Brown of CNN (Washington Post, 2/22).

Video of the health care-related clips and a transcript are available online at health08.org.

NPR's "The Bryant Park Project" on Friday reported on the debate. The segment includes comments from Obama, Clinton and Univision anchor Jorge Ramos ("The Bryant Park Project," NPR, 2/22). Audio of the segment is available online.

NPR's "Morning Edition" on Friday reported on the debate. The segment includes comments from Obama and Clinton (Liasson, "Morning Edition," NPR, 2/22). Audio and expanded coverage of the segment are available online.

NPR's "Morning Edition" on Friday also reported on the implementation of Massachusetts' health insurance law (Knox, "Morning Edition," NPR, 2/22). Audio of the segment is available online.

Opinion Pieces
Summaries of two opinion pieces that address health care issues in the presidential election appear below.

• Steven Pearlstein, Washington Post: The "15-page single-spaced" health care proposal that Obama has released provides a "cogent analysis of what ails the health care system, along with the best thinking of Democratic health care reformers on how to fix it," Post columnist Pearlstein writes. The proposal would prove "expensive and involve a major federal intrusion into the marketplace," and "there is a legitimate question as to whether the plan would work better if everyone were required by law to buy health insurance," he writes. However, "it is a serious plan that would win the support not only of labor but also of major parts of the business community, including hospitals and health insurers." In contrast, the health care proposal released by likely Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) includes only "two pages of platitudes with no specifics and no way to pay for itself" (Pearlstein, Washington Post, 2/22).
  
  
• Michael Tanner, St. Paul Pioneer Press: The health care proposal that Obama has released would "take America down the road to a government-run health care system," Tanner, director for health and welfare studies at the Cato Institute, writes in a Pioneer Press opinion piece. Under the proposal, health insurers would remain private companies but would have to operate in "an artificial marketplace with strict government regulation, much like a public utility," with regulations on "what types of benefits you would be required to purchase and how much insurers could charge," according to Tanner. He adds, "Young and healthy people would have to pay more than they ought" to "subsidize premiums for older, sicker individuals." In addition, Tanner writes, the requirement that employers offer health insurance to employees would "almost certainly end up hurting workers" because companies are "indifferent as to whether compensation comes in the form of wages, taxes, health insurance or other benefits" and would "therefore have to find ways to offset the added costs," such as reductions in wages and other benefits (Tanner, St. Paul Pioneer Press, 2/21).