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Deeds vs. McDonnell on the issues, part 3: Healthcare reform
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Politics are becoming more volatile then ever. Many Americans go to the voting booths uninformed of many of their candidate's views on issues. They rely more on party name then any other factor. With the Virginia gubernatorial election coming up in just over a week, and with Loudoun County playing a crucial role in deciding its outcome, it is important to know exactly where each candidate stands on the issues without the spin. We will now examine each candidate's plan for dealing with the healthcare reform controversy.
With healthcare reform a crucial issue at all levels of government, it is of paramount importance to understand where the gubernatorial candidates stand on the issues surrounding healthcare reform.
In many respects, the candidates' stances are similar. For example, both Creigh Deeds and Bob McDonnell want discrimination protection for patients with pre-existing conditions. Both candidates also endorse benefits for prevention, wellness, and health education programs and vow to work with employers to make these programs available to help drive down healthcare costs. Both candidates endorse auditing Medicare and Medicaid to streamline the programs and reduce waste and fraud. Both advocate the betterment of mental health through community based approaches. Both candidates strongly endorse student loan forgiveness for medical professionals who agree to work in underserved areas of the state.
Their plans differ in many ways as well. For example, a large part of McDonnell's plans for reform deal with malpractice tort reform. This area drives up healthcare costs directly by forcing physicians to purchase costly malpractice insurance, thereby forcing them to transfer the cost to their patients. It also indirectly drives up costs by forcing doctors to practice "defensive medicine" to avoid getting sued for malpractice. The findings from a study by Massachusetts Medical Society and UConn Health Center researcher Robert Aseltine Jr found that defensive medicine costs the state of Massachusetts alone at least $1.4 billion dollars a year. Generalized across the nation, this amount comes to approximately $70 billion annually. McDonnell would like to reduce the number of lawsuits and keep the cap on the amount that can be won in a malpractice suit from increasing. McDonnell's plan to deal with the uninsured is to use a free market approach to allow competition to drive quality, low-cost plans while also funnelling more resources into services such as free clinics. By extending additional funding to "safety net providers" such as these free clinics, McDonnell's plan would further drive down healthcare costs by taking away the burden of emergency rooms as primary care facilities, the most costly of all such providers. It is worth mentioning that McDonnell's plan does not officially offer any protection of insurance plans, though it does offer numerous plausible ways to drive down overall healthcare costs.
Creigh Deeds' plan in many ways mirrors the proposed legislation already in congress. He seeks to create an insurance "pool" to help uninsured individuals get coverage. He, like his opponent, plans to offer loan forgiveness as a means to bring medical professionals into underserved areas, and further wants to create a marketing campaign to attract other medical professionals to these areas. He wants to expand the "Virginia Cares" plan for the uninsured. He endorses a proposal which would force the state to buy prescription drugs in bulk to save money. He also wants to provide protection to keep workers from losing their insurance if they lose their job. It should be noted that in 1999, Creigh Deeds voted to raise the cap of malpractice suits from $1 million (at the time) to $3 million, and has taken no official stance as far as providing funds for so-called "safety-net providers" such as free clinics, though his plan does offer some protection for workers who are in danger of losing their coverage if they lose their jobs.
As the race continues to heat up and become more and more contentious, it is important to separate the negativity from the issues at hand. Leading up to election day, we will examine the issues and do our best to provide you with more in-depth, no-spin coverage.
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Bob McDonnell
Creigh Deeds
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