Whom the Candidates Listen to on Healthcare
Clinton
Formerly senior healthcare adviser to President Clinton, Chris Jennings worked closely with Hillary Clinton, then first lady, on the 1993-94 healthcare reform effort. Now a senior adviser to Clinton's presidential campaign, he has a health policy consulting firm in Washington, D.C. Neera Tanden, Clinton's campaign policy director, helped develop and is overseeing the rollout of Clinton's current plan. She was senior adviser to the first lady in the Clinton White House.
Obama
Barack Obama adviser David Cutler is a Harvard professor of applied economics who served on the Council of Economic Advisers and the National Economic Council during the Clinton administration. He worked on the Clinton healthcare reform plan in the 1990s. David Blumenthal, another adviser, is a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and health policy professor at Harvard and has done extensive research on healthcare reform strategies and information technology costs.
McCain
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, John McCain's top domestic policy adviser, is a former Congressional Budget Office director who has been instrumental in shaping the senator's healthcare reform plan. McCain adviser Tom Miller is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. The former senior health economist for the congressional Joint Economic Committee takes a particular interest in consumer-driven healthcare.
Reader Comments
Advise to Candidates on Healthcare
McCain would choose an advisor like Tom Miller, resident fellow at the American Entrerprise Institute, a conservative think tank that emerged under Bush as a kind of Cheney-family think tank. I would not put too much stock in his opinion as he would just abide by the Bush/Cheney policy.
Clinton sought advise from Christopher C. Jennings, who was the Senior Health Advisor for Clinton in 90s. But, now Mr. Jennings is working closely with the Republican strategists of Fierce & Isakowitz and has been hired by The Generic Pharmaceutical Association (GPhA) not in a position to be objective as he must abide by the Bush/Cheney policy also.
Obama has gone to David Cutler for advise. Cutler has impressive record of achievement in both academia and the public sector. Professor Cutler has held position with National Insttutes of Health and Natl Academy of Sciences. He is currently a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a member of the Institute of Medicine. Voters, like me, would have the tendency to believe someone like Cutler since he does not appear to be beholden to either the Dems or Republican Parties.
Candidates on Healthcare
Leave it to McCain to go to Tom Miller for advise. Mr. Miller is a resident fellow of American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a conservative think tank where more than twenty AEI alumni and current visiting scholars/fellows have served either in a Bush administration policy post or on one of the government's many panel/commissions. The AEI has emerged under George W. Bush as a kind of Cheney-family think tank. After looking at who is on their Board I really don't think they can be objective and open about an "affordable and fair policy. They will probably abide by what Bush and Cheney tell them to say.
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