Both President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry are proposing changes to the nation’s health care system that they claim will lower overall costs, and both promise to provide coverage for some percentage of people who are currently uninsured. That’s where the similarities end.
- Bush favors a free-market approach that includes medical savings accounts and tort reform that would limit medical liability in lawsuits.
- Kerry's plan would create incentives for employers to extend coverage to more people, open federal health benefits to individuals and small businesses, and force drug manufacturers to lower their prices.
“The difference between the two candidates on health care is even more pronounced than perhaps other policies,” said David Gergen, a former advisor to several presidents of both political parties, who is currently a professor of public service at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
According to Kenneth Thorpe, PhD, chair of the department of health policy and management at Emory University, the president's plan would cost around $90 billion over 10 years and would extend health care coverage to between 2.5 million and 5 million people who are currently uninsured. Kerry's proposal would cost an estimated $690 billion over 10 years, but would cut the ranks of the uninsured by 27 million.
“With Bush, you're providing insurance through the private sector, while with Kerry, you're doing it through the public sector,” says Alina Salganicoff, director of Women's Health Policy for The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation in Menlo Park, Calif. “Bush plans to spend one tenth as much money, while Kerry plans to insure seven times as many people.”
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Background
Today, 42 million Americans are without health insurance, a number that has increased by nearly 3 million since President Bush took office in 2001. In the past four years, spending on prescription drugs has tripled and the cost of health care premiums has gone up 40 percent.Lacking health care coverage is not only a serious problem for individuals and families, but also for many businesses and the nation. It costs the U.S. economy about $130 billion annually in lost wages and other expenses.
“This isn't just a problem for low-income Americans,” says Kate Sullivan, the director of Health Care Policy for the Washington-based U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “Everyone in the U.S. needs better access to health care.”