Working families give
presidential contenders last close look
Where
do the frontrunners stand on HEALTHCARE?
Al Gore:• Medicare — Gore would take Medicare off-budget and restrict the use of Medicare payroll taxes only to strengthen Medicare and paying down the national debt. He would extend the life of the Medicare Trust Fund until at least 2030 by devoting the interest savings from debt reduction to Medicare solvency.
Gore would expand Medicare to pay half the cost, up to $5,000 annually, of prescription-drug coverage for seniors and people with disabilities. And Medicare would add a new catastrophic prescription-drug benefit. It would also provide cost-sharing protections for low-income beneficiaries.
Gore would offer Americans ages 55 to 65 a 25 percent tax credit to buy into Medicare.
• Patients’ rights — He supports a Patients’ Bill of Rights that ensures patients critical health protections and takes medical decisions from insurance companies and HMOs and gives them back to patients and doctors.
Gore would fight for strong medical privacy protections. He would also work to ensure that health insurers and employers cannot discriminate based on genetic information.
• Healthcare access — He proposes to expand eligibility under the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and hold states accountable for signing up eligible children for health insurance. And he would extend CHIP benefits to parents.
Gore would offer small businesses that join health-insurance-purchasing coalitions a 25 percent tax credit for the premium costs of each employee.
And he would boost support for community health centers, public hospitals, teaching hospitals and some other “safety-net” providers to help them expand and improve services “especially in the areas of primary healthcare, mental-health and substance-abuse services.”
• Mental Health — With his wife Tipper, Gore has proposed a comprehensive initiative to help Americans with mental illness receive appropriate quality treatments, including ensuring full parity for children.
• Long-term care — Gore proposes: a $3,000 tax credit for a wide range of formal and informal long-term-care needs; “one-stop-shops” to provide respite care, information, referral, counseling and support.
George Bush:• Medicare — Bush says his plan will cover all prescription-drug expenses for low-income seniors, the full cost of Medicare premiums for low-income seniors, at least part of the premium cost for all seniors, and the cost of catastrophic Medicare costs for all seniors.
• Healthcare access — Bush says his plan would provide working, low-income families with a $2,000 refundable health credit to pay for the health plans and physicians they choose. He would make it easier for small businesses to get lower cost employee-health insurance through associations. And he would give states more flexibility in designing and implementing programs for the uninsured.
He would provide $3.6 billion to build 1,200 additional Community Health Centers. He would strengthen and reform the National Health Service Corps to ensure that physicians are directed to the areas most in need. And he would provide $500 million in grants over five years to fund innovative projects addressing targeted health risks.
• Health benefits for the working disabled — Bush proposes to spend $1.025 billion over five years to expand access to technology, further integrate persons with disabilities into the workforce, and remove barriers to their full participation in community life.
• Private vs. public healthcare — Bush favors “a different role for government... based on the belief that government should turn first to faith-based organizations, charities, and community groups to help people in need.
“Resources should be devolved, not just to the states, but to the charities and neighborhood healers who need them most, and should be available on a competitive basis to all organizations, including religious groups, that produce results .... This is the next bold step of welfare reform.”
• Substance abuse — Bush favors “a balanced policy of education, treatment, and law enforcement” to counter illegal-drug use.
• Long-term care — Bush says he would make the cost of long-term-care insurance 100 percent tax deductible and would provide an additional $2,750 personal tax exemption to taxpayers for each qualifying spouse, parent or relative that they care for in their home.