Presidential candidates name healthcare IT as part of reform plansIn the third and final presidential debate held Wednesday night at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y. , Republican candidate John McCain and Democratic candidate Barack Obama both mentioned healthcare IT as essential to reforming U.S. healthcare.
When asked by debate moderator Bob Schieffer of CBS News if they favor controlling healthcare costs over expanding healthcare coverage in today's tough economy, Obama said his plan would do both. The Illinois senator said he would propose federal funds to advance healthcare IT adoption to lower healthcare costs.
McCain, too, said he would push for widespread adoption of healthcare IT to lower healthcare costs, much like the Veterans Administration has done.
To further manage costs, Obama said he would have the federal government negotiate cheaper drug prices. He and McCain also called for stronger emphasis on preventive medicine to manage costly preventable chronic illnesses, such as diabetes and heart disease.
But here the candidates parted ways, with Obama calling for universal healthcare and McCain calling for deregulation of healthcare insurance and tax cuts that allow Americans to purchase their own insurance.
According to Obama, his healthcare plan would allow Americans to keep coverage through their employer, exactly as it is, at lower costs, saving the average family $2,500 a year in premiums. Those without coverage could buy into a plan similar to the kind federal employees can purchase. Under his plan, insurance companies would not be allowed to discriminate on the basis of pre-existing conditions, Obama said.
"This will cost some money on the front end, but over the long term this is the only way that not only are we going to make families healthy, but it's also how we're going to save the federal budget, because we can't afford these escalating costs," he said.
McCain called Obama's plan "big government at its best" and accused Obama of wanting to set up "healthcare bureaucracies" to "take over the healthcare of America."
The Arizona senator said his plan would allow Americans to have "a chance to choose their own futures, not have Senator Obama and government decide that for them."
Obama, in turn, said McCain's plan would threaten the stability of current employer-based health insurance by drawing healthier Americans out of the pools, leaving the less healthy, more costly Americans in dwindling employer-based pools. Those pools would become too expensive for small businesses to maintain, thus dropping an estimated 20 million people from employer-based coverage. Many would face trying to find coverage elsewhere, with pre-existing conditions that may preclude them from purchasing healthcare at all, let alone at affordable prices.
Obama accused McCain's plan of taxing healthcare benefits "for the first time," as McCain's plan calls for taxes on employer-based health benefits. Obama also said healthcare costs average $12,000 for the average American family, not the proposed $5,000 under McCain's proposal.
McCain argued 95 percent of the people in America will receive more money under his plan. |
发表于 2008-10-18 07:39:33