Asp web page

Health is, of course, a major issue in the upcoming election. These resources will help you become more informed! The web sites below cover candidate endorsements and scorecards, voter registration, party platforms, candidate proposal comparisons, and general health policy. I also include some detail on a few specific campaign issues, namely the uninsured, Health Savings Accounts, stem cell research, and universal mental health screening.

I'd like your ideas for Web Page Potpourri. Which web resources do you find to be helpful?

Health Versus Wealth

http://www.pkarchive.org/column/070904.html

Medical Class Warfare

http://www.pkarchive.org/column/071604.html

Bush Health Proposals Would Increase Number of Uninsured, Column Says

http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=24797

Two columns by Paul Krugman, originally published in The New York Times, are a brief guide to overall differences between Bush and Kerry's health plans. (Krugman deems Kerry's plan to be far better.) Kerry's plan will extend health coverage to 26.7 million people, while Bush's will extend coverage to 2.1 million people. That's a close-to 13-fold difference, costing seven times as much. Important to note: Kerry's plan will be paid for by rescinding tax cuts for the close to 3% of the population with incomes above $200,000.

Responsible Wealth -- http://www.responsiblewealth.org/

United for a Fair Economy -- http://www.faireconomy.org/

Remarkably, a group of wealthy Americans agree that for the good of the people, tax cuts for the richest should be repealed. Responsible Wealth is a project of United for a Fair Economy.

Party Platforms

http://www.americanpresidency.com/site/docs/platforms.php

http://www.democrats.org/about/platform.html

As this column goes to press, only the Democratic Party Platform is complete. Presumably, by the time you read this, the Republican Platform will also be available at the American Presidency Project website and on the Republican National Committee site. Take a few minutes to read the health sections.

Affordable Health Care for All

http://www.johnkerry.com/issues/health_care/

Making Health Care More Accessible and Affordable

http://www.georgewbush.com/HealthCare/

Democratic Party Health Care

http://www.democrats.org/healthcare/

President Bush's Agenda for Improving Health Care

http://www.gop.com/GOPAgenda/AgendaPage.aspx?id=4

These are the candidate and party health issue web pages. While important, I generally find these to be less helpful than sites which offer critical review of the proposals.

Study Compares Bush/Kerry Health Plans

http://www.aafp.org/x28463.xml

http://www.aafp.org/x22202.xml

Professor Kenneth Thorpe of Emory University offers an analysis on the website of the American Academy of Family Physicians.

HSAs Won't Cure Medicare's Ills

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publications/template.cfm?PubID=1000578

Health Savings Accounts ... More Snake Oil

http://econ4dean.typepad.com/econ4dean/2003/11/health_savings_.html

Two sites critiquing the Republican proposal of Health Savings Accounts

Stem Cell Information

http://stemcells.nih.gov/index.asp

Stem Cell Research

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/politics/specials/stemcells/

Stem cell research has become a campaign issue. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Washington Post both have extensive web resources on the subject.

Bush Plans to Screen Whole US Population for Mental Illness

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/328/7454/1458

Mental health screening--six letters

http://www.illinoisleader.com/letters/lettersview.asp?c=17886

I find this little-discussed issue to be extremely interesting. What are the ramifications of the Bush plan for universal screening for mental illness, along with Illinois' newly passed law requiring mental screening of all pregnant women and children? My favorite letter to the editor of The Illinois Leader was titled: Mental health bill is insane.

The Center for Responsive Politics (Open Secrets)

http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/

Are you curious about which candidates are being supported by the pharmaceutical industry or the tobacco industry? This is the place to find out.

Physicians for a National Health Plan

http://www.pnhp.org/

This physician-based organization is working toward a Single-Payer National Health Program.

The site offers helpful fact sheets to help distinguish this approach from "socialized medicine" and to answer further questions. The site also includes downloadable slide shows, and the full text of related peer-reviewed literature. Consider endorsing their proposal. As one recent medical school graduate writes on the site, "Instead of expressing shock each time we hear that the number of uninsured has gone up another million people, we can actually do something about it." (The United States currently has 44 million uninsured people.)

Project Vote Smart

http://www.vote-smart.org/

This is a non-partisan organization with a great website. I tend to use it for the comprehensive collection of interest group scorecard ratings. This will be especially helpful for House and Senate races. (Since presidents and governors don't vote, there are no scorecards rating George Bush) Here's an example of how these scorecards read on this site: "On the votes that the Pennsylvania League of Conservation Voters considered to be the most important in 2001-2002, Senator Schwartz voted their preferred position 100% of the time." This site also includes many other features, such as endorsements--including those for Bush and Kerry.

American Nurses Association Government Affairs Department

http://www.anapoliticalpower.org/

The American Nurses Association endorsed John Kerry for President. They've been making presidential endorsements since 1984. The endorsement is based on a questionnaire on nursing and health issues, personal interviews, and polling of their membership.

Heartland Institute PolicyBot

http://www.heartland.org/policybot.cfm

This site has a database of 13,000 policy documents. Know what you're getting when you use this industry-funded site. For instance in the Cancer and Pollution section the documents were overridingly dismissive, with report titles such as Animal Tests Overstate Cancer Fears, and The Environmental Cancer Epidemic that Never Was. The Smoking section offers fare such as Joe Camel Is Innocent!, and The Anti-Smoking Movement is Hazardous to Smoker's Health.

Kaiser Network

http://www.kaisernetwork.org/

I trust this site, subtitled "Health policy as it happens." Services include webcasts of Congressional hearings and other important health-related meetings, daily reports which you can receive by email, and an extensive calendar of events. There is also a nice searchable archive of poll results to more than 60,000 questions on health issues. For election-related content, choose "Issue Spotlight" and then "Election 2004."

Urban Institute Health Policy Center

http://www.urban.org/content/PolicyCenters/HealthPolicy/Overview.htm

Look to this site for data-rich reports, such as Two-Thirds of Uninsured Children in Fair or Poor Health Are Hispanic and State Responses to 2004 Budget Crises: A Look at Ten States. Urban Institute congressional testimony is also available on the site.

Federal Election Commission

http://www.fec.gov/

National Voter Registration Application Form

http://www.fec.gov/votregis/vr.htm

You may still be able to register to vote in November (and register others to vote) depending on when you are reading this. On page 33 of the National Voter Registration Application Form there is a list by state of voter registration deadlines. Don't worry: the form is not 33 pages long! The document simply provides detail on how to register in all 50 states, along with a single form that works in every state.

by Marjorie Roswell

3443 Guilford Terrace * Baltimore, Maryland 21218 USA

Phone: 410-467-3727 * Email: mroswell@charm.net

Marjorie Roswell is a web developer at a health policy organization in Baltimore.

COPYRIGHT 2004 The Townsend Letter Group
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group