And as long as I’m praising reporters for responsible journalism (see below), let me also point out a terrific article in today’s New York Times about the health care policies of Kerry and Bush.
What’s so terrific about it? As Ezra Klein noted, it’s a (gasp!) substantive, issue-driven article that (another gasp!) compares the two health care plans. There’s nothing about personalities, or polls, or political strategy. It’s just a straight news article about one of the nation’s most pressing domestic issues. I was beginning to think these were just mythical creatures that only existed in my imagination.
Nowhere are the policy differences between Mr. Kerry and Mr. Bush more apparent, health analysts say, than on what to do about rising health costs and the growing number of Americans without insurance.
Few dispute the extent of the problem. After several years of stability in the mid-1990’s, the cost of coverage is soaring again. Premiums were up an average of 13.9 percent last year, the third consecutive year of double-digit increases. More and more small businesses say they are staggering under the strain.
The number of Americans without insurance, meanwhile, has jumped to 43.6 million, according to a census report last fall, and more than a fifth are children.
[…]
[T]he Bush and Kerry plans differ substantially in cost, the number of uninsured they hope to cover, the methods they would use and the underlying philosophy. Health care analysts say the difference in scale alone is striking.
Wait, the article, written by the Times’ Robin Toner, gets better.
The article notes there’s a problem and actually talks about what the two candidates are prepared to do about it.
Mr. Bush’s main proposal for the uninsured would cost $70 billion over 10 years. It would give a new tax credit to low- and moderate-income families to help them buy health insurance. The proposal, first unveiled in the 2000 campaign but never enacted, would provide up to $1,000 for individuals and $3,000 for families. The administration estimates it would benefit 4.5 million Americans when put fully into effect.
[…]
As the president envisions it, consumers would combine high-deductible insurance plans, which are relatively inexpensive, with tax-free health savings accounts that they would create to cover the cost of routine medical care. This year he has proposed making the premiums for those plans deductible, to further encourage their use.
Critics fault the president’s plan on several grounds. They say that his $3,000 tax credit falls far short of what it takes to buy a substantial family plan, and that he relies too much on the market of individual health insurance rather than buttressing the employer-based system of group coverage, considered far more stable. In the end, the critics assert, Mr. Bush’s proposals would leave tens of millions of Americans uninsured, and many millions more squeezed by the soaring costs of an unfettered market.
And then there’s Kerry’s approach.
Mr. Kerry, for his part, has a sweeping plan that tries to cover all uninsured children and most uninsured adults without the kind of fundamental structural change that doomed past Democratic proposals. It would cost $650 billion over 10 years, his campaign estimates, and would be financed by rolling back the Bush tax cuts for those earning over $200,000 a year.
The most unusual part of Mr. Kerry’s plan would have the federal government pick up 75 percent of the cost of the most expensive medical cases – those of over $50,000 a year – if employers guaranteed that they would pass the savings along to their workers through reduction of premiums. This is intended to ease the burden on businesses, especially small ones, and provide cost relief to Americans with insurance.
In general, Mr. Kerry would provide a variety of new subsidies to help small businesses and low-income people buy health insurance: $177 billion over 10 years in tax credits, more than twice the size of Mr. Bush’s credits.
The senator would also create a new version of the Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan, a collection of private plans now available to Congress and federal workers, that would provide good group coverage to other Americans and small businesses. And he would expand assistance to the states to cover more children and low-income adults under Medicaid.
I don’t want to be a victim of my own criticism here, failing to note the substance while I’m thrilled with the coverage. These are two completely different approaches to a critical issue that affects nearly every American. John Kerry offers a serious, comprehensive proposal that greatly expands access to quality health care for millions of families. Bush offers a shallow, rehashed plan that he considers a low priority compared to tax cuts for the wealthy.
For voters who take this issue seriously, these competing health care proposals offer the most striking difference between these two candidates.