HEALTH POLITICS: That's The Way You Debate (Health Policy)

Health care remains a top issue in the presidential race, despite the struggling economy. Health care issues received quite a bit of attention at last week's presidential town hall debate and the Obama Campaign has hammered the airwaves with ads about health care. This is likely because in many ways when people fear for their jobs, they fear for their health care coverage. And when they are worried about paying their bills, they are worried about paying their insurance premiums.

Obama and McCain have one last chance to debate how they would reform our struggling health system. Their approaches differ, but we here at the New Health Dialogue think the overall message about health care reform appeals to both sides of the aisle.

If we were part of the candidates' respective pre-debate huddles, here is what we would say:

• Our struggling health care system is hurting U.S. businesses and the American workforce. U.S. manufacturing firms pay almost three times as much for health coverage as their foreign competitors. This has lead many employers to send jobs overseas. Meanwhile, sick workers are less productive. And the uninsured are more likely to remain sick unnecessarily for long periods of time. An improved U.S. health system is not just a moral imperative, it's an economic one.
• We must reduce health care costs for every American family. Whether you have coverage or not, there is no doubt that insurance costs too much and costs are rising too fast. While we certainly must cover all Americans, we also need to begin to control the rate at which health care costs rise. Otherwise, none of us will be able to afford coverage for much longer.
• We must improve the quality of care that patients receive. Bringing 21st century tools to our health system and paying clinicians in a way that makes sense will allow providers to spend more time with patients, cut down on preventable mistakes, and lead to better coordination of patient care.
• Controlling health care costs is part of the solution to our entitlement crisis. Government analysts have said consistently that rising health care costs represent the single biggest fiscal challenge to our nation. Medicare and Medicaid spending continue to eat up a greater and greater share of our federal budgets. Providing a health care safety net is critical to protecting our nation's most vulnerable. Comprehensive health care reform will make our entitlement programs more sustainable and ensure that Medicare and Medicaid will be around to care for generations of Americans to come.
• Improving our health care system is part of a comprehensive economic recovery plan. More and more Americans are simply unable to afford health coverage. More and more jobs are being sent overseas because of the employer health care burden. Rising health care costs place increasing strain on state, local, and federal governments. We must reform our health care system not in spite of our current economic crisis, but precisely because of the impact that health care costs have on our economy and our nation's fiscal future.

Watch out David Axelrod and Rick Davis...hardly. But nevertheless, stay tuned for our post debate recap, where we will translate the professionals' politics into health care policy.