----- Original Message ----- From: <institute at igc.org> To: <institute at igc.org> Sent: Thursday, January 06, 2000 11:25 AM Subject: Gore and Bradley: Health Care Plans -- or Scams?
> Institute for Public Accuracy
> 915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045
> (202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * ipa at accuracy.org
> ___________________________________________________
>
> Thursday, January 6, 2000
>
> GORE AND BRADLEY: HEALTH CARE PLANS -- OR SCAMS?
>
> Vice President Al Gore and former Senator Bill Bradley repeatedly
> sparred in last night's debate over health care -- but some analysts are
> criticizing both politicians' policy prescriptions as serving the
interests of
> insurance companies.
>
> STEFFIE WOOLHANDLER, M.D.
> Director of the Center for National Health Program Studies at Harvard, Dr.
> Woolhandler said: "In 1993 Clinton's managed competition proposal rejected
> a single-payer system, putting most Americans into private HMOs. Bradley's
> plan is actually a step to the right of that. Unlike Clinton, Bradley
doesn't
> aim to cover everyone -- he admits at most 95 percent, though it would
> probably be less. Unlike Clinton, Bradley has no meaningful regulation of
> HMOs, which have been the source of much of our problems..."
>
> IDA HELLANDER, M.D., http://www.progressive.org/brad9912.htm
> Executive director of Physicians for a National Health Program, Dr.
> Hellander co-wrote (with Woolhandler) the cover story "Wrong Prescription:
> Bill Bradley's Health Plan Is No Cure" in the December 1999 issue of The
> Progressive. Hellander said today: "Basically Bradley wants to privatize
> Medicaid, turning hundreds of billions of dollars over to his friends in
the
> HMOs. His plan actually came out of ideas from the right-wing Heritage
> Foundation. The plan is unlikely to decrease the number of uninsured,
> currently growing at 100,000 people per month. Contrary to Bradley's
> rhetoric, this is an incremental approach which doesn't work in health
> care -- witness the failure of Kennedy-Kassebaum and the Clinton
'Children's
> Health Insurance Plan' to cover more people. Such approaches further tempt
> employers to drop coverage for workers and their families, particularly if
> we face a recession. Bradley sounds progressive, talking about universal
> coverage and helping poor children, but in fact there is not a Democratic
> candidate who is serious about health care for all."
>
> QUENTIN YOUNG, M.D., pnhp at aol.com, http://www.pnhp.org
> National Coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program and
> clinical professor of preventive medicine at the University of Illinois,
Dr.
> Young has been in contact with representatives from Bradley's campaign.
> Young says: "They acknowledged that the program we outlined --
single-payer
> national health insurance -- was the better plan; it would cover everyone,
> including the 45 million currently uninsured, for less money than we spend
> now. Instead, Bradley adopted a voucher scheme which is inadequate and
> deceptive... Ironically, Gore is attacking this plan from the right,
saying
> that it will bust the budget. Neither of them address the real issues:
> runaway profits resulting from reckless market medicine -- and some
criminal
> behavior -- that have increased costs, decreased access and quality."
>
> For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
> Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
>
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