Universal Health Care: 2008 Presidential Candidates' Proposals on Future Health Care
With the many issues America is facing, health care is the number two issue among American voters next to Iraq. Over 45 million citizens are uninsured and out of those, 9 million are children. Those with insurance suffer from inadequate care. The purpose of this study is to display the American health care concerns, then examine and compare the health care proposals from Democratic and Republican Party of the 2008 elections, along with a comparison of past proposals such as the 1994 Clinton's health care reform and the 2004 Bush tax incentives. This study was done because their plans affect each American individually and informs voters on detailed plans which they can choose from. In whatever way either party approaches the issue, the conflicting components of the system, access, affordability and quality, will need to be addressed in some way. A collection of data was taken from peer-reviewed journals such as Pub Med, Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA), and Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF). In addition, newspapers such as USA Today, PBS (Public Broadcast Station), Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal, were included in the search for relevant literature. This study will fill in that gap from past research by comparing differences in Party proposals. Overall, the candidates' proposals are easy to misunderstand because of the difficulty within the terms. The average citizen may have trouble understanding exactly what is being said. This can be a burden to voters which leads them not to do any research because lack of comprehension. Although this is a major issue, a couple of candidates have not submitted a proposal. On the other hand, there were many similarities and differences with those that did.
School:
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Department:
Community Health
Research Advisor:
Susan Farner
Department of Research Advisor:
Community Health
Year of Publication:
2007