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2008 Presidential Candidate Health Plan Report Card

The National Physicians Alliance (NPA) believes that health care is a right, not a privilege, and thus strongly endorses quality, affordable health care for all.  Toward that end the NPA has endorsed the five principles of health care reform identified by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) as the necessary foundation of a just health care system (IOM 2004, http://www.iom.edu/CMS/3809/4660/17632.aspx).  To develop the following Presidential Candidate Health Plan Report Card we evaluated the likelihood that the candidate's published health care plan would achieve the five principles of the IOM and assigned a letter grade (A-F) to each principle as well as an overall average grade to the health care plan.  For candidates without a published plan on their campaign website, or for plans that did not address a specific principle, we have assigned the designation of "truant."  A "plus" next to a grade indicates that the plan was close to achieving the next higher grade.

 

The IOM Principles:

1. Health care coverage should be universal.
2. Health care coverage should be continuous.
3. Health care coverage should be affordable to individuals and families.
4. The health insurance strategy should be affordable and sustainable for society.
5. Health insurance should enhance health and well-being by promoting access to high-quality care that is effective, efficient, safe, timely, patient-centered, and equitable.

 

Democratic Candidates^*

	Universal	Continuous	Affordable for Families	Sustainable for Society	High-quality/ Patient-centered	Average*** Grade
Obama	C	B	Pass	C	A	B

^*Democratic candidates were included if they had a national polling average ≥10% on January 14, 2008 (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/democratic_presidential_nomination-191.html).  Before he pulled out of the race, Dennis Kucinich was the only candidate in either party to earn an overall A grade, based on his Medicare for All proposal.

 

Republican Candidate^**

	Universal	Continuous	Affordable for Families	Sustainable for Society	High-quality/ Patient-centered	Average*** Grade
McCain	C	B	Fail +	C	C	C

^**Republican candidates were included if they had a national polling average ≥10% on January 14, 2008 (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/republican_presidential_nomination-192.html).

***Average grades were calculated by converting the letter grades to numbers, which were totaled and divided by 5 (A=5, B=4, C=3, D=2, F=1, Truant=0, Honors=5, Pass=3, Fail=1). Fractions ≥0.5 were rounded up to the nearest whole number.

 

Click here to see the grading rubric.

Click on each candidate's name to learn how grades were assigned for each principle.

Click on a principle to learn about all the candidates' grades for that principle.