As America awaits the outcome of the presidential primaries, the fate of healthcare sits in the balance as well.
With a win in Wisconsin Tuesday night, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) declared himself the Republican presidential candidate. Democratic hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), in a tenth straight win, is one step closer to gathering that party's nomination, though Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) is still very much in the game.
But what of their healthcare promises?
As time goes on, if it's possible, healthcare seems to be gaining even more momentum as an issue. Blogs are abuzz with the topic and presidential debates often address the issue first. As economic strain bears down on America, concern over healthcare costs has increased.
Last October, McCain unveiled his healthcare platform, saying he anticipates that healthcare will be a prominent issue in the presidential election.
"The biggest problem with the American healthcare system is that it costs too much and inflationary pressures are actually built into it," he said. "My reforms are built on the pursuit of three goals: paying only for quality medical care, having insurance choices that are diverse and responsive to individual needs and restoring our sense of personal responsibility."
As part of his reform package, McCain is calling for changes to the tax code to eliminate what he calls the bias toward employer-sponsored health insurance. He aims to provide all individuals with a $2,500 tax credit, and families would receive $5,000, to increase incentives for insurance coverage. Individuals owning innovative multi-year policies that cost less than the full credit would be able to deposit the remainder in expanded health savings accounts, he said.
Obama and Clinton have made it clear throughout their campaigns that they consider it a moral obligation to provide healthcare coverage to every American, and both would fund their plans, in part, by allowing top-end income tax breaks passed during President Bush's time in office to expire.
At the Families USA Health Action conference in January, Obama called for universal healthcare in the United States by no later than 2012. He was the first to set a timeframe for such a goal, though his Democratic rivals also supported universal healthcare at the time. Clinton supports mandated universal healthcare.
"Universal healthcare must not be a question of whether, it must be a question of how," Obama said. "We have the ideas, the resources and now we need the will. There is no reason why we can't accomplish that."
"The skeptics must be living somewhere else, because when you see what healthcare is doing to our families, when you see what the crisis is doing to our economy, to our country, you realize that what is too costly is caution," he added. "It's inaction that is too risky."
Clinton has been campaigning heavily for the adoption of electronic health records, a cornerstone to her presidential healthcare platform from the start. She has repeatedly told voters that moving to electronic records from paper could save an estimated $77 million in healthcare costs. She also said upgrading healthcare from paper to electronic records is one of several key ways that the United States could cut runaway healthcare spending by one third.
"The time is right," Clinton said at a Kaiser Family Foundation panel last October. "If Democratic and Republican governors and legislatures can work together on healthcare, if doctors, nurses, pharmacists, hospitals, patients, CEOs, small business owners can all agree that itís time for a change, then why can't Washington?"
The candidates face primaries on March 4 in Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas and Vermont.