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Just
Adopt Just Health Care |
Where
Do
the
Candidates Stand
On Just Health Care?
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GORE
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No
Endorsements
The Labor Party will not endorse any candidates in
the 2000 presidential election. At the Labor Party’s
1998 Constitutional Convention, delegates overwhelmingly
adopted a resolution on electoral strategy that rules
out endorsement of non–Labor Party candidates.
Section II of the statement reads:
"The Labor Party will support only candidates
for office who are Labor Party members running solely as
Labor Party candidates. The Labor Party will not endorse
any other candidates."
(Here's
the Labor
Party's full Electoral Strategy statement)
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Like Bush, Vice President Al Gore failed the Labor Party’s
challenge on Just Health Care. "I have always been a
vocal advocate of health care reform," says Gore in a
letter responding to the Labor Party’s call. He then goes on
to state his support for several relatively minor alterations
in the nation’s deeply flawed health care system.
If Gore wants to look good on health care, his best move
would be to stay silent on his record. Since Clinton and Gore
took office, the number of uninsured has rocketed. Even the
insured are worse off, since we’ve shifted from a largely
fee-for-service system to one run by huge profit-making HMOs.
This record of from bad to worse doesn’t bode well for a
future Gore administration.
Gore advocates:
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The Democrats’ version of the "Patients Bill of
Rights." This bill, the subject of much Congressional
debate, tries to shield patients from some of the worst abuses
of the for-profit health care system, such as denial of care
at emergency rooms.
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Expansion of the Clinton administration’s Children’s
Health Insurance Program to cover children above the poverty
line.
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Allowing people with disabilities to keep their Medicaid
or Medicare coverage when they return to work.
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A 25 percent tax credit for small businesses to help
offset the cost of health insurance.
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A 25 percent refundable tax credit for people who don’t
have insurance through their employer.
The problem with Gore’s approach to the health care mess,
argues Quentin Young of Physicians for a National Health
Program, is that it is purely incremental, and "incrementalism
doesn’t work. It’s costly, and it makes people demoralized
about what government can do." As an example, he cites
the measure that Clinton and Gore tout as their greatest
health care triumph, the Children’s Health Insurance
Program: "What CHIP proposed to do was to cover three of
the eleven million kids who should have been covered. Three
years later, we haven’t come close to getting even those
three million children enrolled."
BUSH
Like Gore, Texas Governor George W. Bush assures us that he
believes "every American should have access to quality,
affordable health care." However, his platform would
probably move us in the opposite direction.
Bush supports:
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A refundable tax credit of up to $2,000 to help low-income
uninsured people purchase health insurance. (The typical
family health plan costs at least $5,000 a year.)
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Lifting of federal restrictions on how states implement
the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Health activists
say this could be disastrous, since it would allow states to
escape the federal requirement that children receive essential
preventive and primary care through the program.
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Expansion of the Medical Savings Account program. Bush’s
proposal would likely lead more healthy people to sign up for
MSAs, leaving older and sicker people alone in insurance pools
where they would have to pay higher and higher premiums.
Bush has been blasted for his record on health care as
governor of Texas. In most national rankings on health care,
Texas is in the bottom three states. The state ranks number
one in the percentage of uninsured children. In 1998, 27
percent of all Texans were uninsured.
BUCHANAN
Patrick Buchanan, running on the Reform Party ticket, did
not respond to the Labor Party’s Just Health Care challenge.
In fact, Buchanan apparently has nothing at all to say
about the nation’s health care system. Health care reform is
not part of Buchanan’s 5-plank platform: an "America
first" trade policy, opposition to abortion rights, a
"USA first" foreign policy, lobbying reform, and
"protecting America’s borders."
A search of the candidate’s website revealed no
substantive references to health care. Campaign staff did not
return our calls.
NADER
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| Press and delegates surround
Ralph Nader at the Labor
Party’s Founding Convention in Cleveland in 1996. Photo ©1996, Michael Kaufman;
Impact Visuals |
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Green Party candidate Ralph Nader is calling for a
Canadian-style single-payer health care system similar to the
Labor Party’s Just Health Care plan. The Association of
State Green Parties, at its recent convention, voted to
endorse the Just Health Care plan, along with the Labor Party’s
entire Call for Economic Justice.
"The U.S. spends more per capita on health care and
covers fewer people than any other western nation," says
Nader. "Where does the money go? Twenty to thirty percent
goes to corporate overhead and profits."
Nader argues that the Canadian system, although underfunded,
"is still probably the best in the world, despite
attempts by companies and corporate ideologues in North
America to undermine and weaken it. For around 10 percent of
its GNP, Canada provides health care for everyone from cradle
to nursing home. Its administrative expenses are about eleven
cents out of each dollar compared with double that in the
United States, which this year may spend 14 percent of its GDP
on health care, even as it leaves tens of millions of men,
women, and children without coverage."
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