As part of its ongoing effort to inform debate about health care issues in the 2008 presidential election, the Kaiser Family Foundation has released an interactive online tool to compare the health care proposals of presidential candidates. The tool, 2008 Presidential Candidate Health Care Proposals: Side-by-Side Summary, summarizes positions in four overall categories of access to health care coverage, cost containment, improving the quality of care and financing.

The online tool allows users to customize side-by-side comparisons by selecting as many as four candidates for comparison that can then be formatted into a printer-friendly format. Users will also be able to print out documents comparing all the Democratic candidates and all the Republican candidates.

The candidates' summaries were prepared by Foundation staff with the assistance of Health Policy Alternatives, Inc. They are based on information appearing on the candidates' websites and supplemented with information from candidate speeches, the campaign debates and news reports. The sources of information are identified for each candidate's summary (with Internet links). Information will be updated regularly as the campaign unfolds.

The new tool is part of health08.org, a website operated by the Foundation providing analysis of health policy issues, regular public opinion surveys, and news and video coverage from the campaign trail. For further information on the side-by-side comparison or other health08.org efforts contact us at health08web @ kff.org.

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EMBARGO FOR RELEASE
12:01am, Wednesday, September 19, 2007

CONTACTS:
Dave Lemmon, Families USA
(202) 628-3030 dlemmon@familiesusa.org

Richard Coorsh, Federation of American Hospitals
(202) 624-1527 rcoorsh@fah.org

Rakesh Singh, Kaiser Family Foundation
(202) 654-1313 rsingh@kff.org

FAMILIES USA/FEDERATION OF AMERICAN HOSPITALS ANNOUNCE "HEALTH CARE 2008: PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE FORUMS"

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Two of Washington, D.C.'s most prominent health policy organizations announced today that they are organizing "Health Care 2008: Presidential Candidate Forums" - a series of Presidential Forums that will allow each Presidential candidate to discuss in detail his or her vision about health reform and the uninsured with a panel of leading health journalists from "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer," ABC News, National Public Radio, and The Wall Street Journal.

The Forums are being organized by Families USA and the Federation of American Hospitals, produced by MacNeil-Lehrer Productions and hosted by the Kaiser Family Foundation in its Barbara Jordan Conference Center. The Foundation's health news and information site, kaisernetwork.org, will webcast each forum live and archive them for viewing.

Seating is extremely limited and is restricted to invited guests and members of the media.

The first Forum will take place on Monday, September 24 at 11am Eastern Time and will feature former Senator John Edwards (D-NC). The remaining Forums will take place through the end of the year.

"Not since 1992 has there been such a focus in the Presidential campaign on health care," remarked Chip Kahn, President of the Federation of American Hospitals. "These Forums will provide what I predict will be the campaign's best conversation with the candidates on health care. They should enable Americans to thoroughly assess each candidate's vision for our health care future."

"Health care is the top domestic issue for America's voters, and the forums will enable the public to understand the different approaches presidential candidates bring to this growing concern," said Ron Pollack, Executive Director of Families USA. "Rather than brief and meaningless sound bites, the forums will allow the candidates to explain how America's health care system will change if they are elected in 2008."

"We know from our Kaiser tracking poll that health care ranks as the number one domestic issue Democrats, Republicans, and independents want to hear the candidates talk about," said Drew Altman, president and chief executive officer of the Kaiser Family Foundation. "These forums can make a meaningful contribution to understanding the views of the candidates in depth, and we are pleased to be able to bring them live to people around the country through our health news and information service, kaisernetwork.org."

The Forums are being funded by The California Endowment of Los Angeles, California and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City, Missouri.

Each Forum will be structured identically, last exactly one hour, and feature just one candidate. After introductions, candidates will be asked an initial question, followed by two to three follow-up questions, after which each will have five minutes to present his or her views about health reform. During the remaining time, each candidate will respond to questions from an on-stage panel of four of the nation's most distinguished journalists with expertise in health policy.

The members of the media panel are Susan Dentzer of "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer" (PBS) (moderator); Julie Rovner of National Public Radio; Laurie McGinley of The Wall Street Journal; and Timothy Johnson, M.D., of ABC News. During the Forums, only the on-stage media panel will ask questions of the candidates.

Families USA and the Federation of American Hospitals have extended invitations to participate to all of the Presidential candidates from both major parties. Scheduling for the Forums is based upon the availability of each candidate. As of September 19, 2007, the following candidates are confirmed:


September 24
11 am
Senator John Edwards (D)

October 25
8:30 am
Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)

October 25
11:30 am
Senator Joe Biden (D-DE)

October 31
10 am
Senator John McCain (R-AZ)

November 1
11 am
Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT)

TBD
Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY)

TBD
Governor Mike Huckabee (R)

TBD
Governor Bill Richardson (D-NM)

TBD
Representative Ron Paul (R-TX)

Additional information is available electronically at a website developed by the Kaiser Family Foundation for the Forum series. The URL is: http://presidentialforums.health08.org.

Families USA is the national organization for health care consumers. It is nonprofit and nonpartisan and advocates for high-quality, affordable health care for all Americans.

The Federation of American Hospitals is the national representative of investor-owned or managed hospitals and health systems. Our members include general community and teaching hospitals in urban and rural areas as well as rehabilitation, long-term acute care, cancer, and psychiatric hospitals.

The Kaiser Family Foundation is a non-profit, private operating foundation dedicated to providing information and analysis on health care issues to policymakers, the media, the health care community, and the general public. The foundation is not associated with Kaiser Permanente or Kaiser Industries.

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With the 2008 presidential race well underway, some analysts believe that political independents will play a key role in the final vote. Last month, The Washington Post, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University released a Survey of Political Independents exploring the views and priorities of these voters on a variety of issues. Today, a new Survey Brief is available, which takes an in-depth look at independents' views on health care, including the saliency of the issue, which party best represents their own views on health, whether candidates should focus more on lowering costs or expanding coverage, and willingness to pay to cover the uninsured.

Looking at self-identified independents as a whole, health care is a moderately salient issue, ranking third among most important problems for the government to address (well behind Iraq and just behind immigration, an issue that was receiving intense news coverage at the time of the poll), and second among issues that are extremely important to independents personally (behind Iraq). Yet because independents are not a uniform group, the brief also looks at how five different subgroups of independents think about health care.

Two groups in particular--"Disguised Democrats" and the "Disillusioned"--stand out as more likely to be moved by health care issues. These groups represent a third of all independents and 10% of the public overall, making them a key audience for candidates looking to break through with voters on this issue.

The Survey Brief is available online here.

The Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard University Survey Project is a three-way partnership and an experiment in combining survey research and reporting to better inform the public. The Survey of Political Independents, the 16th in this partnership series, was conducted by telephone from May 3 to June 3, 2007 among 2,140 randomly selected adults nationwide, including 1,014 self-identified independents. The margin of sampling error for results based on independents is plus or minus 4 percentage points; for subgroups the sampling error is higher. The three partners worked together to pick the survey topics, design the survey instruments, and analyze the results.

If you know anyone who would be interested in this alert, please pass it on.

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ELECTION 2008

Democratic Presidential Candidates Propose Pragmatic Approaches to Universal Health Care To Avoid Pitfalls of 1990s Health Reform Effort

A number of Democratic presidential candidates -- including Sens. Barack Obama (Ill.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and former Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) -- support health care reform approaches "that borrow from the Massachusetts model," a law enacted last year in that state that "took key elements of the 1993 Clinton plan and made them practical politically," the Washington Post reports. Obama and Edwards have released plans to achieve expanded coverage using elements of the Massachusetts plan. Clinton has outlined an agenda to address health care costs, and is expected to focus on quality and "insuring everyone" later this year, according to the Post.

The Post reports that Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist Jonathan Gruber, who helped with the Massachusetts law, has consulted with the three leading Democratic candidates and is "possibly the [Democratic] party's most influential health care expert and voice of realism in its internal debates." Gruber said, "Plans which minimize the disruption to the existing system are more likely to succeed than plans that rip up the existing system and start over." He added, "It doesn't take a genius to see that. That's not to say that plans ripping it up wouldn't be better -- I just think they're political non-starters."

However, Ezekiel Emanuel -- a physician and bioethics expert who has consulted with some candidates and who is Rep. Rahm Emanuel's (D-Ill.) brother -- advocates replacing the current health care system with a plan that would allow people to buy health coverage with vouchers. Emanuel said that the proposals of the leading Democratic candidates are not "bold," adding, "I don't think they solve the problem."

Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidates -- including former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who signed the 2006 health reform bill into law -- have depicted the Democratic candidates' proposals as "socialized medicine," the Post reports.

John Sheils, a health care expert at the Lewin Group, said that the Democratic candidates' proposals might not be entirely realistic. "There is an idea you can somehow do all these things controlling costs without anybody doing anything they don't want to do," Sheils said (Bacon, Washington Post, July 10, 2007).

Opinion Piece
"We believe that health insurance providers can promote health, improve quality and reduce costs, thereby creating the means to provide universal access," Aetna Chair and CEO Ronald Williams and Aetna Chief Medical Officer Troyen Brennan write in a Post opinion piece. "We are glad to see presidential candidates support these same goals," they write, concluding, "We hope that politicians and the public recognize that providing access to care that is proven effective and efficient is going to be critical to meaningful reform and that health plans have real expertise to bring to the table" (Williams/Brennan, Washington Post, July 10, 2007)

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Health care remains the top domestic issue that the public wants presidential candidates to address, trailing only Iraq on the public's overall priority list, according to the latest Kaiser Family Foundation Health Tracking Poll: Election 2008.

The June poll finds that 43% of adults cite Iraq as one of the most important issues for presidential candidates to talk about, followed by health care (21%). Iraq ranks first among Democrats, Republicans and independents alike.

Health care ranks second among Democrats and independents, while Republicans rank immigration slightly ahead of health (20% vs. 18%). Immigration rose sharply as an issue since March and ranks third overall with 18% in the new poll, which was taken as media attention focused on the Senate debate about immigration reform legislation. The economy (13%) and gas prices (12%) follow.

"Health is not yet back at the level it was in the early '90s as a national issue, but it is rising," said Foundation President and CEO Drew E. Altman, Ph.D. "The decisive factor that will determine whether we again have a big national debate will be the degree to which the presidential candidates really take on the issue in the campaign."

The poll also measures the public's perceptions of the presidential candidates on health issues. To date, most people don't know or can't name the candidate who they feel is placing the biggest emphasis on health or the candidate who most matches their own views. Across party identification, Sen. Hillary Clinton remains the candidate that people are most likely to name as placing the biggest emphasis on health care (23%) and as agreeing with their views (17%). Sen. Barack Obama is in second place (9% on each question).

Looking only at Democrats, one in three name Sen. Clinton (33%, compared to 27% in March) as the candidate who comes closest to their personal views on health care, compared to 15% who name Sen. Obama (up from 8% in March) and 4% who name former Sen. John Edwards (no change since March). Since the earlier poll, Sen. Obama announced his health proposal and Sen. Clinton announced her plan on health care costs. Sen. Edwards previously announced his health reform plan.

Few people name any of the Republican candidates as placing the biggest emphasis on health care, with 2% overall naming former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Mayor Giuliani and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney each are named by 3% of people as the candidate who most agrees with their health care views. Looking only at Republicans, nearly one in 10 (9%) name Mayor Giuliani as the candidate who most agrees with their health care views, followed by Gov. Romney (6%) and Sen. John McCain (5%).

When asked what concerns them about rising health care costs, the poll found people are twice as likely to cite having to pay higher premiums and increased out-of-pocket costs (38%) as they are to say increases in spending on government health insurance programs like Medicare and Medicaid (18%) or increases in what the nation as a whole spends on health (18%). A smaller share (13%) cite increases in the health insurance premiums that employers pay to cover their workers. These views vary little based on party identification.

The Kaiser Health Tracking Poll: Election 2008 is part of a broader effort by the Kaiser Family Foundation to provide a central hub for resources and information about health policy issues in the 2008 election. In the next few weeks, Kaiser will be launching a new website that will include analysis of policy issues, regular public opinion surveys, daily news updates, video of speeches and debates from the campaign trail, original interviews, and resources for journalists covering the election. Look for the new site at www.health08.org.

The June poll was designed and analyzed by Foundation researchers and involved a nationally representative random sample of 1,203 adults, who were interviewed by telephone between May 31 and June 5. The margin of sampling error for the survey is plus or minus 3 percentage points; for results based on subgroups, the sampling error is higher. Full results are available here.

Contacts
Craig Palosky
(202) 347-5270
cpalosky@kff.org

Larry Levitt
(650) 854-9400
llevitt@kff.org

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