Univision: on Health Care

Barack Obama: Morally wrong that terminally ill must consider money

A: It shouldn’t be. And it’s wrong. You know, my mother died of ovarian cancer when she was 53 years old. And I remember in the last month of her life, she wasn’t thinking about how to get well, she wasn’t thinking about coming to terms with her own mortality, she was thinking about whether or not insurance was going to cover the medical bills and whether our family would be bankrupt as a consequence. That is morally wrong. It’s objectionable. That’s why I put forward a comprehensive legislation for universal health care so that all people could get coverage. My attitude is, that since you are paying my salary as taxpayers, you should have health care that is at least as good as mine. And the key to that is not only a good plan, but we’ve also got to overcome the drug & insurance company lobbies, that spent $1 billion over the last 10 years to block reform. As president, I am going to take them on.

Barack Obama: FactCheck: Correct that insurance lobbying cost $1B

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the pharmaceutical and insurance industries spent $1.2 billion and $949 million, respectively, on all lobbying efforts since 1998. Moreover, the two industries combined shelled out about $193 million in political donations and expenditures backing Republicans, about twice as much as they spent supporting Democrats. So it is reasonable to conclude that the pharmaceutical and insurance industries have indeed spent at least $1 billion combating legislation that Obama favors.

Bill Richardson: New healthcare system in one year, with no new bureaucracies

A: I would pass it in one year. It would take two or three years to implement. This is what I would do.

1. Every American--black, brown, white, yellow, rich or poor--everyone should have access to the best possible health plan.
2. No new bureaucracies.
3. We also have to share. Everyone shares in my plan.
4. If you have a health care plan and you’re satisfied with it, you can keep it. But we need to have everyone accessible to the best congressional plan.
5. We also have to lower Medicare from 65 to 55 and over.
6. For all veterans: I would give veterans a Heroes Health Card, and they could get their health care anywhere they want.
7. What I also want to do is focus early on prevention, on cancer research, stem cell research, autism, heart disease.
8. But we’ve got to start with kids. We’ve got to get rid of junk food in schools. We have to have healthy breakfasts for every child.

Chris Dodd: Include undocumented workers in healthcare plan

A: Well, it has to be. This is again a matter of just basic rights in my view here. Not to provide health care for undocumented workers is not only wrong for them. It’s dangerous for the country as well. And so my plans include the undocumented workers as part of health care. I also ban discrimination against pre- existing conditions. It’s universal.

Dennis Kucinich: Fake debate if we talk about maintaining present system

A: Let me explain something to the people who are here and who are watching. This debate about health care is a fake debate in this campaign, because all of these candidates are not telling the American people that what they’re talking about is maintaining the present system, where you have insurance companies controlling the system, and you are still stuck with premiums, co-pays & deductibles Everyone knows that insurance companies make money not providing health care, and everyone knows that as long as we’re stuck with this system, where insurance companies make $600 billion a year out of spending that ought to go directly into health care, we’re not going to get the care we need. It’s either health care as a right or health care as a privilege, and I stand for the people.

Dennis Kucinich: FactCheck:Insurance industry profit is under $97B, not $600B

In fact, health insurance companies don’t make nearly that much. According to the most recent historical data from the Department of Health and Human Services’ National Health Expenditures Accounts, the total of all premiums paid for private health insurance was $694.4 billion in 2005. But of that total, $596.7 billion was paid out in benefits. The remainder went to administrative and “net” costs, such as claims processing, disease and care management, sales, marketing, and taxes. These statistics don’t break out a figure for profits, but it would be some fraction of the $97.7 billion that doesn’t go to benefits, and a far cry from $600 billion.

Fred Thompson: Make insurance portable so employment untied from health

Fred Thompson: Lower cost by more efficient markets, not bigger government

A: The lower health care costs are, the more people will be insured. There's really two basic ways to lower health care costs: bigger government or more efficient markets. Government could come in and say what it's going to cost everybody. And then we'd have long lines & waiting, wondering why we can't get radiation for a family member that has cancer and have to wait for months for it, and that sort of thing. We totally, I think, all reject that. I say, let's make our markets more efficient. We made a mistake in our tax code many years ago. We need to reverse that mistake so people are not so tied to their employment for their insurance. They need, through the tax code, need to have the benefit of buying their own insurance through an open market with more sources, more people offering insurance, lifting regulations to make that happen. Free people competing with each other in free and open markets bring down costs.

Hillary Clinton: No parent should be told ‘no' for healthcare for their kids

A: Well, I am very proud that we tried to provide universal health care to every American back in 1993 and 1994. I learned a lot from that, and I'm going to be presenting a plan next week that will be universal. It will cover everyone, and it will make it clear that we as a rich nation with the values that should be the best in the world will once & for all make it absolutely positive that everyone will have health care. Now it's not only about the 47 million uninsured. Millions of insured Americans don't get the health care they paid for. We have a lot of people who, all of a sudden, their child needs an operation and the insurance company won't pay for it. Well, we're going to make it clear that there will be no parent who ever is told no when it comes to getting health care for their children.

John Edwards: Comprehensive coverage costs $90B to $120B a year

A: I do not believe you can have universal health care for free. There are some who I think will make that argument. I don't think it's the truth. My own health care plan, which was the first one in this campaign and I'm very proud of it--comprehensive, requires coverage for everybody--costs $90 to $120 billion a year. And I pay for it by getting rid of Bush's tax cuts for people who make over $200,000 a year.

John Edwards: FactCheck: Plan costs $106B-$146B per year, not $90B-$120B

Actually, the cost of the plan in its first year would be $105.6 billion to $145.6 billion, according to an independent estimate by Emory University professor Ken Thorpe. That assumes the plan could be enacted quickly and take effect in 2010, within a year of the new president being sworn in. The Edwards campaign says the candidate's $90 billion to $120 billion price tag is what the plan would cost if it were in place today--which isn't possible. An aide says the campaign worked with Thorpe, and their estimate is based on Thorpe's estimate of the cost as a percentage of the nation's gross domestic product. But it is not an estimate of what the plan would cost in the first year it possibly could take effect, and Edwards didn't make that clear.

John McCain: Preserve quality of health care by individual responsibility

A: The real question is: How are we going to keep health care costs down, because we have the highest quality of health care in the world in America today? And unlike the Democrats, I'm going to preserve that quality of health care, and at the same time stop the inflation & the skyrocketing costs of health care. And there's a couple of principles:

• To make the recipient of the health insurance much more responsible in health-care costs.
• To address wellness & fitness.
• To give every American family a $5,000 refundable tax credit so they can go anyplace in America to acquire the health insurance policy that best suits their needs.
• And, if they've got money left over, then invest it in a health savings account.

Mike Gravel: Applies lessons from his healthcare-related bankruptcy

A: I'd very simply recognize that we have to provide a system where everybody is treated equally, and that's a voucher system. You would sign up for a voucher, you would not pay for it; they would give you the choice of five insurance plans, and the insurance companies would not determine what care you'll get. They'll compete on the basis of administration. But the difference between the voucher plan, which gives you freedom to pick a doctor, pick a hospital, is different from all the others because they're financing their plans via business enterprise. And there's no reason why businesses in this country should have to carry the cost of health care. It disadvantages them in the world competitive market. It makes no sense. You're given the choice of either a job or health care, but you'll never get both

Mike Huckabee: 1/3 self-insured; 1/3 don't want it; 1/3 can't afford it

A: Of those 47 million, one-third don't have it because they are self-insured. Another one-third don't have it because they think they're healthy and invincible. There is one-third that don't have it because they can't afford it. And then there are a lot of people who have insurance, but they're underinsured.

Mike Huckabee: Crisis from waiting until people are catastrophically ill

What we need to be doing is putting the real focus on preventing the illness in the first place. It's the difference between either putting an ambulance at the bottom of the hill or building a fence at the top. We can afford universal coverage, but not until and not even close until we first have health, rather than just focus on health coverage. Let me say the last thing we need to do is to believe that Michael Moore's idea is good and we can all go to Cuba and get health care. I don't mind shipping him down there, but the rest of us I'd like to get our care here.

Mike Huckabee: FactCheck: 2/3 of uninsured can't afford insurace, not 1/3

We asked Huckabee's campaign how he knew that 1/3 thought they were "invincible," but we've received no response. We can find no studies that support the "invincibility" theory. [The closest is that] about 3 million people are uninsured because they decline available workplace health insurance.

Huckabee also errs in claiming that only 1/3 can't afford insurance. About 2/3 of the uninsured are considered low-income families. Huckabee would be correct to say that 1/3 of the nonelderly uninsured are living below the poverty level.

Huckabee's claim that 1/3 of the uninsured are self-insured is a meaningless statement. In fact, anyone without health insurance must rely on their own resources to pay medical bills. That's what being self-insured means.

Mitt Romney: Personal responsibility instead of employer mandates

A: Well, I actually got the job done. Working with people across the aisle, we said: Enough is enough. Look, the best kind of prevention you can have in health care is to have a doctor. And if someone doesn't have a doctor, doesn't have a clinic they can go to, doesn't have health insurance to be able to provide the prescription drugs they need, you can't be healthy. And you need to have health insurance for all of our citizens. And I found a way to do that without requiring raising taxes, without a government mandate, without a government takeover. When I said government mandate, I meant employer mandate. Instead, we have personal responsibility. We allowed individuals to buy their own policies. Those that couldn't afford them, we helped them buy their policies. And you know what? It cost us no more money to help people buy insurance policies that they could afford than it was costing us before, handing out free care.

Mitt Romney: FactCheck: MA employers have no mandates, but "requirements"

Massachusetts may not call its rules for employers a "mandate," but the state health care plan includes several "obligations" or "requirements," as the state dubs them, for employers, along with fees for noncompliance. The requirements for employers are much narrower than those for individuals, who indeed, according to the state, face a "mandate" to get health insurance.

But is a "requirement" a "mandate"? You be the judge: Employers with more than 10 full-time employees must pay at least 33% of employee premium costs or have a group health plan. Those that fail to do so must pay a fee of $295 per full-time employee per year.

Individuals in the state must have health insurance. If not, they'll lose their personal exemption on state income taxes in 2007--a penalty of $219.

Mitt Romney: FactCheck: No, MA healthcare plan is not paid for, yet

The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation estimated that the state would need an extra $200 million each year for 2007 to 2009 to finance the health care plan, because more people enrolled in subsidized care than anticipated. That shortfall, however, is a projection, and a Boston Globe article on the budget gap said some money could be shifted from the free care fund, if there is money in that fund to do so. Additional dollars came from a Medicaid waiver granted by the federal government, which is set to expire in 2009. The Massachusetts government is negotiating with federal officials to renew that waiver.

Mitt Romney: State targets for insurance, to replace ObamaCare

A: I would repeal all of ObamaCare and replace it with I think the kinds of reforms we really need. Now and then the President says I'm the grandfather of ObamaCare. I don't think he meant that as a compliment, but I'll take it. I'm proud of the fact that in my state, after our plan was put in place, every child has insurance, 98% of adults have insurance, but we didn't have to cut Medicare by $716 billion to do that. We didn't raise taxes on health companies by $500 billion as the President did. And so we crafted a program that worked for our state, and I believe the right course for healthcare reform is to say for each state we're going to give you the Medicaid dollars you've had in the past, plus grow them with inflation, plus 1%, and you as the states are now going to be given targets to move people towards insurance and you craft programs that are right for your state. Some will copy what we did; others will find better solutions.

Rudy Giuliani: Health Savings Account up to $6,000 per family

A: The very best way to do it is more of an incentive for people to buy their own health insurance. You give people a $15,000 family tax exemption to buy their own health insurance. You also give them a Health Savings Account to up to $5,000 or $6,000, so that they can then look for deductibles in insurance. And it brings down the cost of insurance. That's one of the primary ways to do it. And then you break down the barriers where people can only buy in one state and you let them buy in any state, so that we can set up a real competition. The thing that works in America is not socialized medicine that the Democrats want to bring us, not government control, not mandates, but a large consumer market where you empower people to enter that market is the only way to bring down costs and to bring up quality.