If you have attended a presidential candidate event in New Hampshire during primary season, you have probably noticed a contingent of vocal citizens wearing purple T-shirts emblazoned with the words “I’m A Health Care Voter.” At least 70,000 New Hampshire voters have pledged to only support candidates who offer comprehensive health care plans that will provide quality coverage for every American. Those voters have spent much of 2007 attending candidate events across the state and asking pointed questions about each presidential hopeful’s commitment to serious health care reform.

Now you can see what they found out.

A team of policy analysts at New Hampshire for Health Care sifted through heaps of information about each candidate’s health care proposals and released a “presidential health care plan comparison.” The comparison offers brief summaries of all 16 major candidates’ plans, as well as how they propose to fund those plans. The release also breaks down each plan to address a number of specific issues that fall under the health care umbrella.

John Thyng, state director of New Hampshire for Health Care, said the comparison is meant to serve as a guide to help health care voters decide which candidate has the best proposal for providing quality, affordable health care for everyone.
“Our goal is really to put the information out there so that each and every voter in New Hampshire can decide,” Thyng said.
New Hampshire for Health Care is a state branch of Americans for Health Care, which is a project of the Service Employees International Union. Volunteers for the group and its sister organizations across the nation have been following candidates in all the early primary states, including Iowa, Nevada and South Carolina. In New Hampshire, health care voters have been at almost every public candidate event of the 2008 primary.

“Most of the information is actually taken directly from the candidates’ Web sites, as well as from statements they’ve made in debates and public appearances, both here in New Hampshire and across the country,” Thyng said.

The release demonstrates striking disparities between Democratic and Republican candidates. The comparison reports that five of the eight Republicans running have not proposed specific health care plans, while all eight of the Democrats have done so. The Health Care team had strict criteria for what constituted a “comprehensive” plan. Although Republican Mitt Romney, for example, has a plan detailed on his Web site, it does not meet the satisfaction of New Hampshire for Health Care.

“We don’t believe that what Governor Romney has put forward constitutes a comprehensive plan,” Thyng said.

In order to be considered comprehensive reform, New Hampshire for Health Care is looking for plans that provide quality coverage for everyone, with a choice of doctors and plans, preventive care with no economic or racial disparities, cost-efficient and medically effective care, and financing that is fairly distributed between employers, individuals and government.
Thyng insists that New Hampshire for Health Care is a nonpartisan organization and will not endorse any candidate in 2008. The organization has existed since 2002 and has never endorsed a candidate.

What follows is a portion of New Hampshire for Health Care’s presidential comparison, including a concise summary of each candidate’s plan and proposal for funding. To see the full comparison, visit www.newhampshireforhealthcare.org. The site also includes links to each candidate’s Web site, so that conscientious voters can conduct further research on their own. Remember, primary day is just a couple of weeks away, on Tuesday, Jan. 8. Check next week’s issue for a roundup of polling places.

Editor’s note: The information that follows was generated by New Hampshire for Health Care and does not reflect research by or opinions of The Wire.

Delaware Sen. Joe Biden (D)
Health Care Plan: Plan to expand Medicaid and SCHIP to cover young people up to 21 years of age, as well as low-income and childless adults. Plan would allow people to keep their existing coverage or buy coverage through SCHIP, Medicare, or a new Federal Employees Health Benefit Program.
Funding: No specific proposal to fund the plan.

New York Sen. Hillary Clinton (D)
Health Care Plan: Plan requires everyone to purchase insurance and provides subsidies to make coverage affordable. Plan would allow people to keep their existing coverage or buy coverage through Federal Employees Health Benefit Program. Plan also requires large employers to provide coverage or help pay for it.
Funding: Proposes to fund the plan by:
-using revenue generated by capping the federal income tax exclusion of employer health contributions for households making more than $250,000 ($2 billion).
-discontinuing the Bush tax cuts for households making more than $250,000 a year ($52 billion).
-redirecting money currently given to hospitals for uncompensated care.
-using cost savings from the elimination of waste and inefficiency in the current system.

Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd (D)
Health Care Plan: Plan requires individuals and employers to share the cost of coverage based on their ability to pay. Plan allows people to retain existing coverage or to automatically enroll in a new plan similar to the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program. Plan would phase in universal coverage by age group over four years.
Funding: Proposes to fund the plan by:
-using existing employer and individual contributions.
-redirecting money that would be made available by ending the war in Iraq.
-using cost savings from the elimination of waste and inefficiency in the current system.

North Carolina Sen. John Edwards (D)
Health Care Plan: Plan requires employers to cover employees or to help finance a public insurance plan and that requires all individuals to have coverage by 2012. Expands Medicaid and SCHIP, reforms insurance laws to contain costs, and creates regional nonprofit purchasing pools with competing public and private plans to choose from. Plan also allows individuals to keep their existing coverage.
Funding: Proposes to fund the plan by:
-discontinuing the Bush tax cuts for wealthy households earning more than $200,000.
-using cost savings from the elimination of waste and inefficiency in the current system.

former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R)
Health Care Plan: Plan will shift incentives from the current employer-based system of insurance to the individual market without guaranteeing universal coverage or affordability. Plan offers tax credits to help low-income families pay for insurance. Plan offers the expansion of Health Savings Accounts with high deductible health insurance plans, creates large insurance pools for small businesses, and deregulates the insurance industry.
Funding: Proposes to fund the plan by:
-increasing efficiency in the current system.
-repealing health insurance tax exclusions for employees.

former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel (D)
Health Care Plan: Plan would end the employer-based system of health coverage and replace it with a single-payer voucher program that could not deny eligibility based on health, wealth or any other reason.
Funding: No specific proposal to fund the plan.

former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R)
Health Care Plan: Plan would use tax credits and other tax incentives to encourage people to buy private insurance. The plan would expand Health Savings Accounts with high deductible health insurance plans to everyone, but does not address affordability or universal coverage.
Funding: Proposes to fund the plan by:
-encouraging innovation in the private market.
-making health insurance tax-deductible for more families.
-increasing efficiency in the current system.

California Congressman Duncan Hunter (R)
Health Care Plan: Has not yet released a detailed plan. Generally supports private, market-based health insurance system including Health Savings Accounts with high deductible health insurance plans, supports expanding purchasing options across state lines and supports making information more readily available to health care consumers.
Funding: No specific proposal to fund reforms.

Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D)
Health Care Plan: Plan expands Medicare to cover everyone, replacing private and public insurance as described in HR 676. Plan would be single-payer, allowing only public or not-for-profit providers to participate.
Funding: Proposes to fund the plan by:
-initiating a new 3.3 percent payroll tax for employers and employees in addition to the existing 1.45 percent Medicare payroll tax that would replace current employer/employee system.
-repealing President Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy.
-enacting a stock transfer tax.
-using cost savings from the elimination of waste and profit in the system.

Arizona Sen. John McCain (R)
Health Care Plan: Plan would end tax preference currently benefiting employees with health insurance through their workplace. Plan would expand tax credits to help all individuals and families buy private insurance coverage. Proposes to control health care costs by changing provider payments and through tort reform.
Funding: Proposes to fund the plan by reforming the tax code to eliminate the bias toward employer-sponsored health insurance.

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama (D)
Health Care Plan: Plan requires that all children be insured and that all employers either cover their workers or pay into a public insurance plan. The plan also allows people to keep their existing coverage or purchase coverage through a new purchasing pool called the National Health Insurance Exchange that offers competing private and public options.
Funding: Proposes to fund the plan by:
-discontinuing the Bush tax cuts for wealthy families.
-using cost savings from the elimination of waste and inefficiency in the current system.

Texas Congressman Ron Paul (R)
Health Care Plan: Has not yet released a detailed plan. Generally supports current market-based insurance system, expanding Health Savings Accounts and tax credits for individual coverage.
Funding: No specific proposal to fund reforms.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D)
Health Care Plan: Plan requires all individuals to have coverage and provides subsidies to make coverage affordable. Requires employers to contribute to the cost of coverage for employees based on a sliding scale. Allows people to retain existing coverage or to buy coverage through the Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan; expands Medicaid and SCHIP and allows people over 55 to buy into Medicare.
Funding: Proposes to fund the plan by eliminating the waste and inefficiency in the current system.

former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R)
Health Care Plan: Signed a comprehensive health care reform law while governor of Massachusetts. Has not yet released a detailed plan on the federal level. Encourages coverage that varies state by state through market-based reforms. Supports the expansion of private insurance, but does not address affordability; supports tax credits for health coverage.
Funding: Proposes to fund the plan by:
-using funding from annual assessments on insurance providers and hospitals; state and federal grants.
-encouraging states to redirect money for uncompensated care into premium assistance for low-income people to purchase insurance.

Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo (R)
Health Care Plan: Has not yet released a detailed plan. Generally supports market reforms and Associated Health Plans that limit coverage and can exclude people based on previous health conditions.
Funding: No specific proposal to fund reforms.

former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson (R)
Health Care Plan: Has not yet released a detailed plan. Generally supports increased focus on preventive care, tax credits and market based reforms.
Funding: No specific proposal to fund reforms.