Democratic Presidential Candidates Talk About Their Solutions to the Health Care Crisis

Health care has taken a significant position on the national stage. One indication of this is the health care forum that the Center for American Progress, in coordination with the Service Employees International Union, sponsored last month for the field of declared Democratic presidential candidates.

Forty-eight million Americans have no health insurance. The uninsured are sicker and die sooner. They have crushing medical debt, which is the second leading cause of family bankruptcy and a leading cause of family stress and breakdown. The problem of health coverage concerns all Americans—those who have insurance, those offered insurance by employers who turn it down due to the expense, and the uninsured. The entire electorate must demand that every Democratic and Republican presidential candidate take a position on how to solve the nation’s health care crisis.

The most radical option offered at the forum came from Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and former Sen. Mike Gravel of Alaska. Both candidates promoted delivering universal health care through a single-payer health insurance plan.

(According to Physicians for a National Health Program, a single-payer national health insurance is “a system in which a single public or quasi-public agency organizes health financing, but delivery of care remains largely private.” A single-payer system would have all Americans covered for all medically necessary services, including doctor, hospital, long-term care, mental health, dental vision, prescription drug, and medical supply costs.)

Representative Kucinich said, “A not-for-profit health care system is not only possible, but H.R. 676 that I introduced … actually establishes Medicare for all, a single-payer system and it’s a not-for-profit system.”

Former Senator Gravel echoed Kucinich’s initiative: “We can turn around and say let’s have a health care program that established equality… It’s called the universal single-payer—by single-payer I mean all Americans pay for it regardless of the system you have now.” 

Gravel and Kucinich touted the effectiveness of the federal government’s managed health care plans—Medicare, Medicaid, and the Veterans Administration and how these successful programs could be nationalized, benefiting all Americans.

Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina spent his three minutes detailing the specifics of his universal health care plan: “What we need is a big, bold, dramatic change, not small change… In my plan there’s shared responsibilities. The employers are required to either cover their employees or to pay into a fund that will help pay for coverage for their employees.”

Edwards’s health care proposal establishes a national Medicare-like plan, which would essentially compete with private-market insurance companies. His proposal includes a subsidy program to help low-income and middle-income families pay their monthly health care premiums. Edwards proposed paying for the plan by rolling back President Bush’s tax cuts.

Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico offered innovative ways to set up a more fiscally responsible health care program in America over the long-term—investing in cancer research, healthier school lunches, and stem cell research. The governor announced that “by the end of my first term we’re going to have universal health care for every single American in the United States.”

Sen. Barak Obama of Illinois admitted that his campaign did not have a vetted health care plan but presented the core features that he would incorporate:  “Number one, we’re going to have to make sure that everybody is in. Number two, we’ve got to make sure that we apply some principles… We’ve got to put more money in prevention… I do believe that employers are going to have to pay or play.”

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York opened up by unabashedly showing her health care wounds. The former First Lady suggested that her experience with the 1994 universal health care plan would best equip her to maneuver around the powerful interest groups in the Beltway.

On the topic of health care for all, Senator Clinton said, “So we can’t get universal health care coverage unless we end insurance discrimination once and for all… No more free riders. No more companies that don’t insure everybody and shift their costs onto other companies that do and onto the taxpayer…” Senator Clinton also spoke about the nation’s need to invest in technologies for record-keeping purposes.

Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut focused on three principles: universality, prevention, and “building upon the good things we’ve done already: forty years of Medicaid and Medicare.” Dodd concentrated almost exclusively on his experience in the U.S. Senate for the past 27 years; he highlighted his work on the Family and Medical Leave Act and Head Start. 

The Democratic presidential candidates seem to understand that the U.S. health care system is in desperate need of repair: Americans are sick and tired of being sick and tired. Americans want a solution because the cost of doing nothing has been too great.

To learn more about the health care forum, go to the Center for American Progress website.