PART IV: HEALTH CARE
September 4, 2003

In the fourth part of the debate, the Democratic candidates debated how best to help the 41 million Americans without health insurance.

 

Online NewsHour Special Report: The Democratic Debate The Full Debate Part I: Gov. Bill Richardson, Debate Rules, Introductions Part II: Iraq and the War on Terror Part III: The U.S. Economy, Trade and Employment Part IV: Health Care Part V: Immigration and Migrant Workers Sept. 5, 2003: Shields and Brooks offer analysis of the Democratic Debate. Sept. 4, 2003: Update: Democratic Candidates Tackle Iraq, Economy in First Debate Browse the NewsHour's coverage of the Politics and Campaigns   The Democratic National Party	MARIA ELENA SALINAS: (Speaking in Spanish) You have said in the past that all Americans should have health insurance through the government. That's a national health insurance. How do you pay for it? CAROL MOSELEY BRAUN: The way that you get universal coverage is that you have a single-payer system. And if you have a single-payer system, then you will be able to cover everybody. Everybody in this country already gets health care. If you fall out and you don't have insurance, somewhere you will be cared for. Probably in an emergency room. It'll probably be the most expensive care you can get. And the cost will just get shifted throughout the system to other payers--many times, people who pay for insurance through their employer. What I've proposed is a single-payer system that will take advantage of the fact that we are already paying 15 percent of our gross domestic product on health care, de-couple it from employment so that it's not a burden on job creation, it's not a burden on small businesses, it doesn't come out of the payroll tax, which is the most regressive tax, to begin with. And with the revenue that we have from that, from that 15 percent, we can then afford a system much like the federal employees have under what's called FEHBP, a federal system in which you have a single payer but the administration takes place by the companies that individuals choose. The most important part of this is that the physician or the provider and patient relationship has to be central to the health care system. Because if you do that, then you will have a dynamic in favor of quality of care and taking care of patients and people's illnesses--or wellness as well, frankly, because prevention is a big part of this. But you will have a dynamic in favor of quality that the current profit-driven system does not have. We are wasting an awful lot of money on profit on the one hand and disconnects between the different public system on the one hand, private system on the other. We're wasting an awful lot of money that could be better put to provide us with a rationalized system, a single-payer system of health care for everybody. MARIA ELENA SALINAS: Senator Edwards? The Bush administration just implemented new regulations for emergency rooms to limit the amount of services that they provide for people who go there. Now many Hispanics depend, or many minorities, and poor members of our society depend on emergency rooms as their only sources for medical care. What do you do? JOHN EDWARDS: Well, all the candidates on this stage have a health-care plan. There's only one candidate in the election in 2004 who has no health-care plan, and that's George W. Bush. We have differences about the approach to this issue. I, for example, do not believe that we should solve the health-care problem in America by raising taxes on working families--the very people that you're asking about and that we're trying to help. So I start with a very simple idea: children first. For the first time in American history, I will make sure that every child is covered, and I'll do it the only way you can, by making it the law of the land. And in order to get this accomplished, I'm going to ask responsibility from everybody. Responsibility for the parents of these kids to make sure that they're covered. Second, responsibility from the government to make sure that in fact they can pay for it. And third, responsibility from big HMOs, big insurance companies, big drug companies, that if they won't accept--because if we don't bring the cost down, we're never going to get health care under control in this country. And if they won't accept responsibility, we will hold them responsible. I will do what I have done my entire life, first as a lawyer for 20 years, and since I've been in the Senate fighting, for example, with Senator McCain and Senator Kennedy for the Patients' Bill of Rights. And the last thing I'll just mention is the plight of Hispanic families. My plan will cover 3 million Hispanic children. In addition to that, I'd double the investment in public health facilities, the safety net that takes all comers, that makes sure that all kids and all families have a place to go to get the health care they need. And then, finally, to deal with the language disparities that Hispanic families face every day, we should set up a national translation center, open 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, so that we don't have children of Hispanic adults translating to doctors about the problems that their parents are facing. MARIA ELENA SALINAS: Thank you, Senator. Ray? RAY SUAREZ: Governor Dean, how would you get more of the 41 million uninsured covered? And would you have to repeal all or part of the Bush tax cuts to do it? HOWARD DEAN: (Speaking in Spanish). Every child under 18, 99 percent eligible, 96 percent have it. Everybody under 150 percent of poverty has health insurance in my state. Every senior under 225 percent of poverty gets prescription help. Now, if we can do that in a small rural state and balance the budget, surely the United States of America can join with the Japanese and the French and the Germans and the Irish and the Italians, the Swedes and the Norwegians, the Israelis, the Canadians. Every other industrial country in the world has health insurance for all its people, and we can do that, too, if we can do that in a small state like Vermont. Here's what we're going to do. We are going to repeal the Bush tax cuts. You can't pay for health insurance if you have those tax cuts, including the tax cuts for middle-class people. Most middle-class people never got a tax cut from George Bush, and I'm sure they'd rather have health insurance for everybody than the $100 they got from George Bush's tax cut. Second thing, George Bush spent $3 trillion, if you include the interest, on tax cuts for people like Ken Lay, when these people out here had their tuitions go up, their property taxes go up and their state taxes go up because of George Bush's economy. For less than a third of George Bush's tax cuts, we can cover every man, woman and child in America, in many ways building on what we did in Vermont, and that's exactly what we should do, and we should not wait. RAY SUAREZ: Congressman Kucinich? How do you get more of the uninsured covered, and do you have to repeal the Bush tax cuts to do it? DENNIS KUCINICH: (Speaking in Spanish) I've introduced a bill which states that health care is a right, not a privilege, and it's to get the profit out of health care, and here's a copy of it. It's H.R. 676, the sponsors are Mr. Conyers, Mr. McDermott, myself and a number of members of Congress. Congress right now has in front of it a plan that would cover all medically necessary health services, all individuals. Individuals would not have to pay premiums, deductibles or co-pays. But what it would do is it would take the profit out of health care. And with the exception of Ms. Moseley Braun, all the others here will retain the role of private insurers. And we have to understand that the insurers--the insurance companies and the pharmaceuticals right now, they own us. We need to take our health care system back. This is the plan that will do it. And, you know, you can talk about balancing the budget in Vermont, but Vermont doesn't have a military. And if you're not going to cut the military and you're talking about balancing the budget, then what are you going to do about social spending? Hello? RAY SUAREZ: Senator Lieberman, how would you cover more of the uninsured? And would the Bush tax cuts have to go in order to do it? JOSEPH LIEBERMAN: You bet parts of the Bush tax cuts would have to go, and they ought to go. Leadership is about priorities and priorities are about values. You know, this president loves to talk about values, faith-based values, but is it really good faith-based values? Remember what the Bible says about don't harden your heart to the poor, open your hand to them? Is it really good faith-based values to give tax cuts of tens of thousands of dollars to millionaires in America and have 9 million children without health care in this richest of all countries in the world? The answer is, of course not. So we've got to take back some of those high-income tax cuts. But I disagree with Governor Dean and others who would adopt so large a program that it would force an increase in middle-class taxes. That's not fair. The middle class is stressed today. They've got it up to here. And they've got more than $100, let's be honest about it. A lot of them got thousands of dollars. They got the end of the marital tax penalty, child care tax credits and so on. I want to protect those, and we can, with a systematic step-by-step proposal. This is an outrage that particularly hits the Hispanic community--3 million Hispanic children uncovered. I want to create "Medikids." I think it's the best plan that's been offered. Every baby born in America will leave the hospital not just with a birth certificate but with a Medikids card that will guarantee them health insurance up until the age of 25. You won't have to go down to the welfare office to sign up. You won't be mandated if you don't want to buy plans to cover health insurance. We can do this. And as president, I'm going to bring the right priorities and values to the Oval Office. And I will make every American currently uninsured eligible for a high-quality, affordable health insurance. RAY SUAREZ: A quick response from Ambassador Braun. CAROL MOSELEY BRAUN: I want to take issue. A single-payer system will not raise taxes on the middle class. And indeed, the plan I've proposed will free up middle-class incomes because it'll take some of the pressure off of the payroll tax. We can fund this within current spending without raising taxes. And I think it's very important that people understand this is not new tax burden on anybody. This is universal health care in a way that makes sense.