The Boston Globe: on Health Care

Mitt Romney: On choosing providers: "I like being able to fire people"

Romney made the comment while touting a health care approach that would allow people to purchase their own insurance, which Romney said would give the companies an incentive to keep their customers happy and healthy.

"It also means that if you don't like what they do, you can fire them," Romney said. "I like being able to fire people who provide services to me. If someone doesn't give me the good service I need, I want to say, you know, I'm going to go get someone else to provide that service to me."

Romney commented that he feared several times getting a "pink slip," though he and his campaign did not describe when the multimillionaire venture and equity investor ever worried about being dismissed from a job.

John Kerry: Key issue: Does government control reduce cost?

Wesley Clark: Does not support single-payer healthcare

Mitt Romney: Subsidies for health coverage for low-income individuals

Mitt Romney: Voluntary purchasing pools

• Favored creating voluntary purchasing pools through which small businesses and individuals could buy insurance
• Pledged to cut health care costs through market-based reforms such as providing information on the price and quality of health care services to consumers.

George W. Bush: Claims that he supported patient rights in Texas is false

In 1995 Bush vetoed a patient’s bill of rights, one that contained many of the provisions that he praised last night: report cards on health maintenance organizations, liberal emergency room access, and the elimination of a gag clause forbidding doctors from telling patients about more costly treatment options than HMO coverage.

At the time, Bush said these provisions would be too costly to business. Bush did sign some of the provisions into law two years later. But he opposed the right to sue HMOs in court, a right last night he termed “interesting.” But a bipartisan, veto-proof majority in the Texas Legislature supported the right to sue. Bush let the provision go into law without his signature.

Al Gore: Claims of Bush’s choices & benefits are underestimated

ANALYSIS: This is TRUE if the couple’s annual drug bill does not exceed $6,000. If it did, under Bush’s plan, the government would pay the rest.

GORE: And after 4 to 5 years, they would be forced to go into an HMO or to an insurance company.

ANALYSIS: This is NOT TRUE. They would not be forced into an HMO or private plan-they could choose to remain in Medicare.

George W. Bush: Claims of immediate help are only true for poorer families

BUSH: I cannot let this go by. Under my plan, the man gets immediate help with prescription drugs.“

ANALYSIS: This is NOT TRUE. They would not get immediate help because their income exceeds 175% of the federal poverty level. They would get help only after their bills exceeded $6,000. But a poorer family would get immediate help.

Al Gore: Require insurance coverage of experimental cancer trials

While health plans have been increasingly willing to cover the cost to beneficiaries of clinical trials, they have resisted efforts to make coverage a requirement because of the potentially great costs.

Gore also said he wanted to set aside funds to make specific information about cancer care more quickly available to doctors and hospitals. That information would come from the National Institutes of Health and the Library of Medicine. Federal funding for NIH research has increased enormously in recent years and has wide bipartisan support.

George W. Bush: $7.4B for nursing home insurance via tax deductions

Bush wants to provide an income tax deduction to anyone buying long-term care insurance. The deduction, now available only to people who itemize and have big medical expenses, would apply to everyone except those on employer-subsidized long-term care plans. The campaign estimated the cost of that portion of Bush’s proposal at $5.1 billion.

Also, Bush proposed an additional tax exemption for elderly spouses, parents, or other relatives cared for in one’s home. That exemption is currently $2,750 a year. The campaign estimated the cost of that second proposal at $2.3 billion over 5 years.

George W. Bush: Affordable long-term care instead of financial ruin

Al Gore: “Outrageous scare tactics” on Medicare’s HIV treatment?