The Political Voices of Women

Here is a guest post from Jill Miller Zimon at Writes Like She Talks and The Moderate Voice.

The Families USA report, Dying for Coverage, was released yesterday.

From the press release:

“Our report highlights how our inadequate system of health coverage condemns a great number of Ohioans to an early death simply because they don’t have the same access to health care as their insured neighbors,” Ron Pollack, Executive Director of Families USA, said today. “The conclusions are sadly clear—a lack of health coverage is a matter of life and death for many Ohioans.

“Health insurance really matters in how people make their health care decisions,” Pollack said. “We know that people without insurance often forgo checkups, screenings, and other preventive care.”

As a result, he said, uninsured adults are more likely to be diagnosed with a disease, such as cancer, in an advanced stage, which greatly reduces their chance of survival. The Institute of Medicine found that uninsured adults are 25 percent more likely to die prematurely than adults with private health insurance.

Another recent academic study found that uninsured adults between the ages of 55 and 64 are even more likely to die prematurely. For this group, a lack of health insurance is the third leading cause of death, following heart disease and cancer.

I’m not familiar with what Ohio’s U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown or Congresswoman Betty Sutton (D-13) have said about Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama’s health care plans and I couldn’t find anything direct with a little searching, but I’d like to. I know neither Ohio politician has stated how they cast their votes on 3/4 nor how they’ll vote as superdelegates.

FactCheck.org provides a comparison of the two plans here.

Read Obama’s explanation of his plan here. One of the main criticisms has been that it mandates coverage for all children, but not all adults. But in Obama’s speech in January 2007 to Families USA, while his plan was still in formation, he states something that implies that all adults would have – as in, possess and maintain and keep, not just have an oppotunity to have – universal health care:

Plans that tinker and halfway measures now belong to yesterday. The President’s latest proposal that does little to bring down cost or guarantee coverage falls into this category. There will be many others offered in the coming campaign, and I am working with experts to develop my own plan as we speak, but let’s make one thing clear right here, right now:

In the 2008 campaign, affordable, universal health care for every single American must not be a question of whether, it must be a question of how. We have the ideas, we have the resources, and we will have universal health care in this country by the end of the next president’s first term. [my emphasis]

Read Clinton’s explanation of her plan here. One of the main criticisms has been that it imposes monetary fines on individuals who do not have health insurance and already may not be covered due to financial constraints and that it forces people to buy something they may not want. Ohio Daily Blog posted a copy of the Obama flyer that identifies his primary points of opposition to Clinton’s plan.

The Health Care Blog analysis of Clinton’s plan is here but that blog doesn’t seem to have an analogous critique of Obama’s plan. For comparison, they have this one for John McCain. They also pit Clinton v. Obama here.