American Health Care: Gore And Bradley One Problem Two Solutions :: essays research papers

The nations economy has produced 9.5 million jobs in the last four years and raised wages for even the lowest-paid workers. As Americans buy more homes, cars and different consumer goods, the number buying health insurance has not budged. Now, the 44 million Americans with proscribed insurance atomic number 18 taking a prominent place in the study spotlight, thanks to the Democratic presidential primary. And in Vice President Al Gore and former senator Bill Bradley, the nation has a chance to sort out how far it is willing to go, if at all, toward promising health care for everyone. In proposals issued recently, both Democratic prognosiss hold back promised to c over all 11 million children who have no insurance, with taxpayers paying the entire cost for the poor. Gore and Bradley would also give substantial help to the parents of the nations poorest children. But they split over one growing manikin of people the millions of adults who are not quite poor, but who find insuranc e so overpriced that they do not buy it.Almost 17 percent of full-time workers have no insurance, often because employers do not offer it or have shifted costs to employees. Many of the new jobs created in the current boom are at small businesses, which are less likely to offer coverage. Bradley has proposed an expansive plan that helps people further up the economic ladder and which carries an expansive legal injury tag to match. Gore, by contrast, would spend money on the poorest and near-poor while offering only limited help to others.The question has barely been raised among the Republican presidential contenders. But it has sparked the sharpest debate yet in the Democratic campaign, and polls show that voters are likely to make it a general election issue. With surveys suggesting that no candidate can win the Democratic nomination without a strong health plan, Bradley boasts that he is proposing a big idea to attack a big problem. He has derided Gores plan as definitely timid . The tactic has helped raise Bradleys profile among Democrats Gore, by contrast, talks freely of his plans limitations, and his staff uses the word incremental to describe it. They say Bradleys plan is too expensive and would divert dollars from other purposes, such as shoring up Medicare.The true cost of the two plans is open to debate. Bradley says he would spend up to $650 billion over 10 years to insure as many as 39 million more people.