This is from my personal blog. Go to http://shannonlstewart.blogspot.com for more.
Every week, we look over each of the candidates' websites for their positions. We boil out the rhetoric, and only look at the actual plans themselves, eliminating the misunderstandings and the spin.
For week 4 in our continuing series on the policy platforms of the candidates, we're taking a look at healthcare plans.
Access to Coverage
Senator Barack Obama
-Create a new national healthcare plan to allow the uninsured to buy coverage similar to that of Congress. Plan would include: guarenteed eligibility, comprehensive benefits, affordable premiums, copays, and deductibles, and easy enrollment with income related subsidies for those who need assistance to buy into the plan and quality standard requirements for participating companies.
-Create the National Health Insurance Exchange, a watchdog group to reform private insurance markets by evaluate plans and make differences public
-Employers who don't offer or make a meaningful contribution to coverage for employees would be required to contribute to the cost of the national plan with income limits exempting small businesses that are under the limit
-Mandatory coverage for children
-Expand Medicaid
Senator John McCain
-State run Guarenteed Access Plans to create nonprofit corporations to contract with insurers to provide coverage to the uninsurable
-Give people the option of taking a tax credit of $2500 for individuals and $5000 for families to pay for insurance. Credit would go directly to the insurer of individual's choice, with any extra deposited in a Health Savings Account.
-Promote greater access to care through walk in clinics at retail outlets
Lower Costs
Sen. Obama
-Reimburse employers a portion of the cost of catastrophic coverage above a certain threshold if the employer guarentees it will be used to lower employees' premiums
-Support disease management programs for chronic conditions
-Invest $10 billion over 5 years to digitize medical records systems
-Allow government to negotiate with drug companies and let people buy from other developed nations
-Strengthen antitrust laws to protect doctors from insurance companies overpricing malpractice insurance
-Require transparency showing the percentage of premiums that goes toward patient care versus administrative costs
Sen. McCain
-Allow reimportation of drugs
-Digitize medical records
-Promote smoking cessation to lower the number of smoking related illnesses
-Allow greater flexibility on the part of states in providing insurance plans
-Reform medical liability laws to eliminate lawsuits
-Require transparency on medical costs
Ensure Quality Care
Sen. Obama
-Promote patient safety by publicly reporting preventable errors
-Pay providers based on outcome rather than volume of patients
-Strengthen funding for biomedical research
-Invest in combatting AIDS worldwide
-Support mental health parity
-Require public reporting of measures of quality
Sen. McCain
-Dedicate more federal funding toward researching chronic conditions
-Require transparency of quality measures