We Rate All 20 Presidential Candidates on Healthcare

We rate all 20 candidates so you don’t have to.

Fifteen Republicans and five Democrats. Each one wants to be President. And each one “knows” how to manage or un-manage healthcare in the United States.

With the passage of the Affordable Care Act and the hundreds of legislative and legal attempts to undo that passage, healthcare in America—its costs, its availability, its ability to heal or hurt the body politic—continues to be a very popular political football.

As presidential candidate and Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz said just after the 2014 mid-term elections:

“A lot of folks in the press said what a disaster it was to stand up and fight on ObamaCare. That it was going to cost Republicans the majority. It was going to cost seats. Let me point out, we just had an historic election where we won. We’ve got the biggest majority in the House since the 1920s. And the number one issue that candidates campaigned on was ObamaCare. Not only did the disaster that a lot of folks predicted not happen, it was the biggest victory we’ve had in a long time.”

Source: Fox News Sunday 2014 interview of 2016 presidential hopefuls, Nov 23, 2014

Yup, healthcare policy is “in”. Should we be afraid? Very afraid?

Pontificating Is the Winning Healthcare Strategy

With, count ’em, 20 candidates crisscrossing Iowa and New Hampshire (and another baker’s dozen in the wings) there is no shortage of circular and obfuscating healthcare pronouncements. Separating the contenders from the pretenders was no easy task. Credit for compiling each candidate’s utterances—which occasionally coalesce into a specific policy or set of policies—goes to www.ontheissues.org.

So, here’s how the candidates stack up on the “ObamaCare is a Disaster” continuum:

Based on comments collected by On The Issues (www.ontheissues.org), which advertises “Every Political Leader on Every Issue, ” Ted Cruz and Scott Walker are the most anti-ObamaCare candidates running for President. Nearly 77% and 71%, respectively, of all Cruz and Walker’s healthcare utterances being attacks on ObamaCare.

After those two, the discussion broadens out to include all manner of other healthcare care topics. Most surprising, perhaps, is Mike Huckabee.

While Huckabee had more healthcare comments than any of his Republican colleagues, none concerned ObamaCare. That’s right. Zero. Huckabee was more interested in talking about subsidizing extraordinary medical expenses, banning smoking from workplaces, portable medical records, changing the culture of healthcare, simplifying healthcare or using prevention and weight loss as tactics to lower healthcare costs.

Interesting guy that Huck.

And here is how the candidates line up on the “‘Socialized Medicine’ is not an oxymoron” continuum:

Martin O’Malley hasn’t seen a healthcare problem that government can’t solve. He even out-socializes declared Socialist, Bernie Sanders. More than 87% of O’Malley’s comments are pro-government healthcare while Bernie devoted a mere 35% to his commentary to promoting government’s role in healthcare.

As these tables illustrate, some candidates have staked out simple positions at the far corners of the political spectrum. But a handful are clearly grabbing space in the middle.

One candidate, Donald Trump, appears to be occupying both extremes—while studiously avoiding the middle. One day he wants to kill ObamaCare. Later he wants universal health insurance coverage.

Based on their comments, the candidates in the middle include Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush and a couple or more of the current or former governors like Huckabee, Jindal or Perry as well as putative Republican front runner Senator Rubio.

As these tables illustrate, there are Republicans and Democrats who don’t immediately default to one liners and appear comfortable talking about the nuances of the healthcare system as a system.

Rick Perry, for example, talks about the problems of rural healthcare. Hillary Clinton talks about drug costs. Mike Huckabee talks about life style changes and the role of prevention in healthcare. Marco Rubio talks about prescription drug policy for senior citizens.

Gallup Poll: “Voters Warming to Obamacare”

What do voters want? After all, these candidates must appeal to voters—first of their own party then of all political persuasions.

ObamaCare has been the law of the land for two years now and, according to a recent Gallup Poll, Americans are more positive about federal government doing healthcare insurance now than they were at any time since 2001.

According to Gallup, 43% say they are satisfied with the government’s work in healthcare, up 14 percentage points from 2013. Still, most of the people polled by Gallup (56%) remain unsatisfied with government run healthcare.

Gallup has been polling Americans about their attitudes toward government healthcare work for 14 years (since 2001). The first time they asked the question, 27% were satisfied with government healthcare work. In the Gallup survey conducted between April 29 and May 2 this year (2015), 43% said they were satisfied.

Said Gallup: “Americans’ higher satisfaction with the government’s work in healthcare is reflected across the three major partisan groups. A solid 65% of Democrats this year are content with the government’s role in healthcare, contrasted with 39% of independents and 15% of Republicans. While Republican satisfaction is by far the lowest, it is up modestly from 7% two years ago. Satisfaction among Democrats and independents rose 12 and 13 percentage points, respectively.”

Will Positions Change?

If Americans are increasingly comfortable with ObamaCare, will positions evolve?

It is noteworthy that the Supreme Court is getting ready to rule on a key provision of ObamaCare. How will these candidates respond if the Court rules, in effect, to defund health insurance to millions of Americans?

While it is likely that the candidates at either extreme—O’Malley or Sanders for the Democrats, Cruz, Walker or Santorum for the Republicans—will wallow in their intransigence, the others will likely evolve—probably toward the middle. Where most voters are.

And part of the enjoyment of this political season is to watch, as the debates happen, how the candidates wiggle and squirm under the heat and pressure of the Presidential campaign pressure cooker.

Assuming, of course that a stage exists which is large enough to hold all the Republican candidates.