What's in Their Health Care Wallet?

An NPR listener prompted the news there to ask a very simple question: where do the candidates get their health insurance?  When John, Hillary, or Barack have to make call on their doctor, what kind of insurance card are they flashing?  How about Mitt, Mike, John and Ringo Thompson?

As you might expect both Clinton and Obama get their care from the federal employees system.  

"It's clearly a good plan; it covers all types of services that people would need, including prescription drugs, for example," [Marilyn Moon, director of the health program for the American Institutes for Research] says. "But you pay co-pays and deductibles, just like most Americans who get their health care from employers."

Kucinich gets his care from the same system as does John McCain, who also buys into insurance his wife gets from her employer (Cindy works for a large beer distributor, which could explain McCain's low-key speech in New Hampshire).  

John Edwards, however, doesn't get the federal employee's coverage and he's not currently employed by any outside party.  With Elizabeth's highly publicized illness, where does his family get their coverage?  

Actually, it turns out that Edwards does get his coverage — and coverage for his wife — at work.  "Our family gets our health insurance through the campaign," he said. "And it's Blue Cross."

That in itself brings up another question: what are the campaigns doing for their staffers?  You'll be happy to know that Clinton, Obama, and Edwards are all providing health insurance to their staffs.  The only Democratic candidate not providing health care to his workers happens to be... Dennis Kucinich.  On the Republican side, McCain is again following suit.  Whackitarian hopeful Ron Paul has nothing but his frothing family of volunteers, so he has no paid staff to care for.

So what about those other guys on the GOP roster?  None of them are current federal or state employees.  Where are they getting their health care?

when asked how the candidates get health insurance for themselves, the campaigns of Giuliani, former Sen. Fred Thompson (TN), former Gov. Mike Huckabee (AR) and former Gov. Mitt Romney (MA) wouldn't divulge details. It's worth noting that, as a resident of Massachusetts, Romney is required by law — a law which he helped pass — to at least have health coverage.

So what is it they don't want to talk about?  Could it be that since at least three of the four are multi-millionaires, their health care isn't exactly the same as that experienced by the average American?  Rudy, Fred, and Mitt all get to enjoy that "best health care system in the world," namely the system available to those who have the money to buy any health care they need.  For Mike... well, maybe he's self-healing.

It's a shame those candidates won't talk about their own coverage, says health policy analyst Marilyn Moon. Because knowing what kind of coverage they have would help illustrate how the health-reform plans they're proposing for everyone else — plans that rely more on having individuals buy their own insurance — might or might not work.

"One of the difficulties in terms of assessing these health-care plans is actually illustrated by the situations of some of these candidates. Not all of them might qualify for good coverage under the plans that they have offered," Moon says.

That's because Giuliani and Thompson are, like McCain, cancer survivors. And in the individual health-insurance market, says Moon, at least under current rules, people who have had cancer or another serious disease often can't buy health insurance at any price.

So, under their own plans, Rudy or Fred or Mike might not be able to buy insurance at any price.  Is it any wonder they're in no hurry to talk about a real world situation instead of corporate conservative rhetoric freed from any practical application?

Oh, in case you were wondering about Republican staffers, keep wondering

Their campaigns wouldn't say whether staff is covered.

It certainly looks like that while some of the Republican campaigns don't believe in evolution, they have a very Darwinian approach to health care.

Update [2008-1-14 12:54:55 by Devilstower]: As several people have pointed out in comments and email, Fred Thompson may well be collecting his insurance through the Motion Picture Health Industry Plan.  Excellent coverage that's provided because he's a member of a union.