Obama, McCain 'powerless to save US healthcare'
Wall Street bailout poses apolitical threat to US healthcare reform whoever becomes next president, report claims
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Wednesday, 22, Oct 2008 12:48
The Wall Street bailout poses an apolitical threat to US healthcare reform whoever becomes the next president, it has been claimed.
The $700 billion rescue package is hazardous for the health plans of both Barack Obama and John McCain, an editorial in November's Lancet Oncology claims.
Commenting on the editorial, written by journalist Bryant Furlow, Sherry Glied of Columbia University said while there are key difference between the healthcare plans of the two nominees they were both very expensive.
Democratic nominee Mr Obama's plan centres on expanded coverage, while his Republican rival aims to further open up healthcare to the free market.
Though Mr Obama's plan would put more financial strain on the government, a strain it will have trouble enduring after the implementation of the bailout, Mr McCain's plan has its own difficulties to face as a result of the rescue package, including Congressional opinion.
"The bailout will be harder on McCain's plan," argues Ms Glied, arguing that Congress would not likely follow the costly rescue scheme with no plan to expand healthcare coverage.
But others argue Mr Obama's plan faces more difficulties because prospects for healthcare reform will diminish as a result of the bailout.
Roger Feldman of the University of Minnesota said: "Obama's plan involves more spending. There's not going to be money for that."
However, Mr Feldman is still hopeful about the United States' ability to implement parts of either plan.
"The winning candidate's health plan could end up being brought in incrementally," Mr Feldman said, arguing that Mr McCain could wait to implement some of his changes, and either candidate could cap employer-paid insurance subsidies.
Mr Obama's plan relies on savings expected from improved efficiency and health information technology to contain the costs of its reform.
But the Illinois senator's plan is already "built to be incrementalist" according to Mr Feldman who describes it as a 2building blocks approach."
Mr McCain's plan, on the other hand, is more drastic as it brings US healthcare into more unfamiliar territory.
The differences between the likely impacts of the plans on patients, in addition to the way in which they would be implemented, also vary greatly.
The special report compares how patients with cancer or other chronic diseases would fare under each plan, claiming that "McCain's plan is generally bad" for them.
Those patients have the "hardest time in the individual insurance market", argues Sara Collins, lead author of an analysis of the Obama and McCain plans.
"Under Obama's plan for a new national health insurance exchange, those patients would have a place to buy insurance with standard benefits," Ms Collins writes.
Whereas the plan protects these patients from insurance companies that would otherwise deny them coverage, Mr McCain's plan does not require insurance companies to cover the cost of cancer screening, a crucial step in the prevention process, according to Richard Brown of UCLA.
Regardless of the differences between the two candidates' healthcare designs, the allocation of $700 billion elsewhere will mean that the reality of either plan, come January 2009, will be quite different from what was described in their campaigns.