Health tending "may be taking a back seat" at the Democratic National Convention but "liberal activists are combat to make sure it is nerve center stage during the presidential campaign," The Hill reports. According to The Hill, Democrats had believed that health tending "would be at the head of the domestic agenda this election year," but the economy and gas prices have emerged as more important issues in the campaign. Dozens of events have been held by advocacy groups, as well as corporate interests such as the drugmaker AstraZeneca and lobbying organizations such as the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.
Health aid "has not been abstracted from the convention," The Hill reports. Both late Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) "highlighted" health see the light in their speeches, and Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) potential will hash out the event in his speech on Thursday.
Rep. Marion Berry (D-Ark.), a former pill pusher, said, "I don't think any Democrat can have a successful campaign and not address (health care)."
Families USA Executive Director Ron Pollack aforementioned, "It is important that the next president and the following Congress pull in health concern reform a top and early precedency." He said that some of the events experience highlighted the "very substantial difference" betwixt the health care proposals of Obama and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.).
Service Employees International Union President Andy Stern said, "McCain is repackaging the failed policies of the past."
"In spite of the enthusiasm of activists ... and the rhetoric of politicians, the left backstage remains deep divided around health caution reform," with some load-bearing a single-payer system and others working to "keep the private health fear market," according to The Hill (Young, The Hill, 8/27).
Presidential Agenda
Obama as chair likely would approve several bills vetoed by President Bush -- such as legislation that would spread out SCHIP -- "within days of the opening of the adjacent Congress," the Washington Post reports. Bush twice vetoed legislation that would own expanded SCHIP (Weisman, Washington Post, 8/28).
In related news, Obama on Wednesday during a hunting expedition event in Montana promised to extend nationwide a state pilot program that assesses the mental health of veterans. Under the program, the Montana National Guard tests veterans for post-traumatic stress disorder every six months for the first deuce years later on they return from fight and in one case annually in subsequent years. The computer program exceeds internal standards established by the Department of Defense (Newhouse, Great Falls Tribune, 8/28).
Obama Should Focus More on Health Care, Op-Ed States
"If Obama is sledding to exult, he of necessity to draw the bourgeoisie voters who've watched their jobs, health care, retirement savings and family monetary resource grow less secure," simply "this testament only hap if he sharpens and expands his economic message, without further delay," Jacob Hacker, a professor of political skill at the University of California-Berkeley and a swain at the New America Foundation, writes in a New York Daily News opinion spell.
"To do that, he must put three moves into his economic playbook so far mostly lacking," one of which is an increased focus on health guardianship, according to Hacker. "Last year, Obama outlined a health plan light days better than McCain's -- and so pretty much stopped talk about it," Hacker writes, adding, "Democrats gain when health concern is an issue" because "people learn the thriftiness and health care as intertwined" (Hacker, New York Daily News, 8/27).
Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for e-mail delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.
