Experts Question Kerry's 'First Prize' in Health Care Plans

[Duder]

On the campaign trail and on his Internet site, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) boasts that a bipartisan group of policy experts has rated his proposal to reform health care "the best" among those offered by the presidential candidates, including President Bush's plan. He even features a "First Prize" blue ribbon on his Web site.

But the statement is, at best, a questionable extrapolation of a recent report on the candidates' health plans, say the analysts who rated them. The10 reviewers cited by Kerry say they did not choose a top health plan and would be at pains to label one "the best." In interviews, some of them described Kerry's statements as "completely wrong," "patently untrue" and "inappropriate and rather misleading."

Kerry aides, noting that a bit of puffery is common in campaigns, say the claim results from simple math. They took a set of scores compiled by National Journal magazine on July 19 and tallied them.

The result, according to his campaign Web site and press releases: "Kerry Wins Health Care Primary! Bipartisan panel of experts say Kerry plan to make health care accessible, affordable for all Americans rates above all other '04 candidates." The 10 analysts "all agreed that John Kerry's plan is the best choice for doctors, health care workers, businesses and all Americans looking for a solution to the health care crisis that has plagued our country for too long."

"That's completely wrong in two ways," said reviewer Paul Ginsburg, president of the Center for Studying Health System Change. "We didn't agree on anything, and we were never asked to give an overall rating."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31044-2003Aug7.html

[dajabr]

1. Mmmmmmm.....Puffery...

Now I'm hungry!

[killbotfactory]

2. Bush got second place, according to that math...

Told me everything I want to know.

[DrFunkenstein]

3. Not Really

You might want to know that it was a panel ACROSS the ideological spectrum. That might not mean much to you, but it will to the American public.

[dsc]

5. Sorry but if Bush got second place

with as far as I can tell, no plan at all then just how good can these people be. I actually like Gephardt's plan the best with Dean in second.

[burr]

21. Not really...

Because this healthcare "panel" that looked at each of the individual healthcare plans did nothing to rate the entire proposals...just to present some vague numbers and variables, like NA, when analysing the plans. Why would the public care, unless these numbers were rating the entire proposals or providing a side by side comparison of what each major proposal effectively does?

"That's completely wrong in two ways," said reviewer Paul Ginsburg, president of the Center for Studying Health System Change. "We didn't agree on anything, and we were never asked to give an overall rating."

[George_Bonanza]

4. A little disappointed

That this happened. But looking at the chart, I can see that all of Kerry's scores remain stable, with no one category steeply dropping below another Democratic candidate's. Let's just leave out Bush here. Dean called Gephardt's plan "pie in the sky," so let's just forget about that here. Kerry's plan's scores are consistently up there with Dean's, the biggest spread being -0.3 in the "Covering the uninsured." However, Dean drops off a bit in two categories, "Reducing malpractice premiums" (-2.3 to Kerry's), and "Would not cause employers to drop coverage" (-0.5 to Kerry's). I don't know what the important categories are though.

[sandnsea]

24. I'm very disappointed

I don't know what it is about campaigning that people feel the need to make stuff up out of thin air. They should have figured out some other way to promote the report without bold face lying. You would think they would figure out by now that this is just the sort of thing Republicans love to hype out of all proportion. This is the exact sort of thing I look at in a campaign over the long run, it's as important as a candidate's policies or anything else. From now on all we'll here about Kerry's health plan is, 'oh you mean the one he lied about'. I'm really disgusted this happened.

[VoteClark]

6. NO, Dean is the best in Health Care

He is, he said he would give health care to everyone in country and that all Vermonters have Health Care thanks to Dean. This article is correct, Dean is the best, and sure winner. How could they over look Dean!

J4Clark

[dsc]

7. more inaccuracies from you

Dean doesn't claim that all Vermonters have health insurance (he claims accurately that all children have access to health insurance). He also doesn't claim he will insure everyone right off the bat. BTW only Sharpton and Kucinich do. Try being accurate.

[JohnKleeb]

8. dsc real sorry this is happening

been hearing it all night, first Kerry has a bad civil rights record but it was obvious Dean meant Ashcroft, sigh its annoying. I wont call myself Dean's biggest or even a fan, I will support him if hes the nominee of course, this kinda stuff by vote clark is annoying.

[RevolutionStartsNow]

9. Hey John you're a stand up guy (n/t)

[JohnKleeb]

11. well I am just flat out annoyed by all of this you know

Dean isnt my pick but you know, I try to keep an open mind, but I really think vote clark has some nerve giving Dean a hard time when we at least know Dean's views on the issues, and Clark I dont know much about him and his issues.

[RevolutionStartsNow]

12. I think he may just be bored

and he seems to enjoy antagonizing people. Oh well. Go on any forum, you find that sort of thing.

[JohnKleeb]

14. I dont know

Sorry if I scared you earlier with Herr Ashcroft, but the best way to repel him is the same way to repel, Pat Robertson, you guessed it Garlic. Well on vote clark, I dont see the appeal in Clark, he hasnt even declared himself and on the issues :shrug:

[RevolutionStartsNow]

17. VoteClark isn't Wesley Clark

but the problem with him is that if and when Clark gets into this race, he will not have any credibility left here to present Clark's positions. Clark may be a good candidate, who knows? I've seen him on TV, he's handsome, I'll pay more attention to him if he gets in the race. But I won't pay any attention to anything VC says about him.

No need to apologize about the Ashcroft thing, you figured it out and said so. That was some wacky stuff.

[JohnKleeb]

18. Ashcroft has owl's eyes if you think about it

I dont know Clark's views.

[RevolutionStartsNow]

19. Ashcroft is a very bad man

and it will be nice to see him go in 2005.

Clark was a constant talking head on CNN during the height of the war. Every once in awhile he said something interesting, but they used him a lot to fill space. He didn't seem like he was running for Pres., at least to me -- that is, he didn't seem to be using all that air time to campaign.

[JohnKleeb]

20. I fear Ashcroft

Not the kind of guy I want to protect my liberties. He's such a goon.

[dsc]

15. You are stand up

I sincerely hope that Clark isn't taking advice from him.

[JohnKleeb]

16. I doubt he is

Besides to be honest I think Clark is being supported only because he is a general, but imo and my knowledge of history theres only been three generals elected and two of them were horrible presidents, and the other was pretty good but not that good, the first two were Grant and Jackson, and the latter being Ike.

[VoteClark]

22. Actually no, there has been 8

George Washington, William Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Andrew Jackson, Grant, Hayes, Garfield and Eisenhower. Another 2 were just one rank below a General, Col. Roosevelt and Monroe, and three where the sons of the Generals and this made them famous,Madison, Pierce and B. Harrison. So all in all 13, or 25% of Presidents directly connected to the high ranking military officers. If you are to count others as war heros and the ranks of Major and Captain, well we would counting many more than is worth listing.

[VoteClark]

10. Stop Bashing Dean dsc!

You know Dean has the best Health Care plan. Read his plan http://www.deanforamerica.com/site/PageServer?pagename=policy_statement_health. He states it clearly. Give you even a link right from the horses mouth, watch and enjoy:

http://video.c-span.org:8080/ramgen/fdrive/c04_051803_dean.rm

[dsc]

13. I have really had it with you

I have to say that if I thought Clark was at all like you I would literally vote for Pat Buchanan before I would vote for him. He, if he even knew who you were, would be so embarrassed to be associated with you that he would probably commit hari kari at the thought. It is sad for him, and for DU, that one his most well known supporters here is you. I sincerely hope that you never offer him and he never takes any advice from you.

[revcarol]

23. MORE inaccuracy.

DK would phase in his program over 10 years.

Two terms for President Kucinich, plus Hillary's first.

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[blm]

26. Kerry's plan gets the most favorable rating, but he's not allowed to

claim it's the best.

OK. That makes sense.

[burr]

27. Kerry and shrub can claim whatever the hell they want...

even if it's untrue. After all, we're only voters!

[sandnsea]

30. That's not true

If you'd read the article, you'd know that. They said they had simply scored what they knew of the different health plans, there was no consensus, no blue ribbon, no high scorer. It wasn't even their intent for it to be used that way. This is done with schools sometimes too. A group will decide teacher pay is a more important criteria than retention and a school will get a lower grade. A top rated school can end up with kids who don't learn because they spend more money; or vice versa or somewhere in between. The campaigners manipulated this report and it's sleezy campaigning. And I like Kerry, but I don't like this and I'm not going to pretend it's something it isn't. There was a way to report the numbers without pretending the health care plans had actually been given overall ratings, they should have figured it out.

[BrewCrew]

31. who's plan?

Not sure about that. According to the article, "Gephardt had the highest rating in four categories; Kerry in three. Former Vermont governor Howard Dean, a physician, received the top score for plans to reduce medical errors, while Bush scored highest for minimizing administrative burden."

So I'd say Gephardt and Kerry have the best plans according to the National Journal? Is that a false statement? I'm sure both campaigns push the National Journal study, however, Kerry is the only one doing it in speeches and at forums. It is a misleading misconception statement. He should say a panel of experts ranked my plan, compraed to the others, higher in the areas of x,y, and z. I know thats not as sexy as saying the best overall, but a lot closer to the whole truth.

[George_Bonanza]

28. Paul Begala says he thinks it's fair

I don't know how valuable this is, but Paul Begala on CNN's Crossfire said to his opponent Novak that he felt what Kerry did was fair. After all, just looking at it, the report seems to pretty clearly favour Kerry's plan.

[burr]

29. All is fair in war and politics...

even if you do interpret the report to favor the Kerry and Bush plans. Different strokes will please different folks!