Experts say candidates’ ads may be off mark

With medical and insurance costs rising and health care among the top issues voters want addressed, it’s probably not surprising Washington state’s candidates for the U.S. Senate each have a current commercial about that topic.

Experts question whether the issues in those commercials – medical malpractice reform and new types of insurance plans – are the key to the nation’s health care crisis.

But that’s not too surprising, said Gary Claxton, vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan group that studies health care.

“The things you need to talk about that make a difference in costs and coverage are big, controversial and complicated,” Claxton said.

They also don’t fit well in a campaign commercial, he added.

Rep. George Nethercutt is touting his support for medical malpractice reform in a 60-second commercial unveiled last week. Doctors in the ad lament the skyrocketing cost of malpractice insurance and praise the Spokane Republican for his support of a bill that would put a national cap on the amount juries could give patients for pain and suffering from negligent care received from doctors or hospitals.

The ad also criticizes Sen. Patty Murray, who does not support that bill, which passed the House but has stalled in the Senate.

The ad misrepresents Murray’s position, said a spokeswoman for the senator’s re-election campaign.

“She is a co-sponsor of a comprehensive, bipartisan bill” to rein in rising malpractice insurance rates, said Alex Glass.

But that bill, too, is unlikely to pass the Senate.

The Democratic incumbent has a health-care related ad of her own, in which she talks of lowering the cost of heath insurance for individuals and small businesses through buying pools that use their “combined purchasing power” to drive down rates.

The Nethercutt campaign issued a press release demanding she “tell the truth” about her position on insurance pools.

Murray recently criticized him for supporting a bill to allow Association Health Plans, an idea supported by President Bush and House Republicans that would allow federal buying pools to bring low-cost health insurance to small business.

“Murray should check her record before she reads the script,” said Nethercutt spokesman Alex Conant.

Glass replied there was no switch, and no lie.

Murray opposes the AHP proposal because it would allow insurance plans to offer less coverage than Washington state requires, with no state regulation. She supports other buying pools, like those currently available in Washington.

But that’s not a federal issue Murray can address in the Senate, said Conant.

As convoluted as this argument gets, it only scratches the surface of the issues surrounding health care reform in America.

“It’s very complicated, and there are a lot of strong feelings,” said Alwyn Cassil of the Center for Health System Change in Washington, D.C.

Health care costs are rising rapidly as expensive new technology becomes available to more people, Cassil said.

Sometimes it’s overused or misused, she added, but no candidate is going to talk about restricting access to that technology.

Changing the rules for insurance pools or putting limits on malpractice awards will only help on the margins, Cassil and others agreed.

The fight over malpractice pits two very powerful lobbying groups in the country, doctors and trial lawyers, against each other, said Micaela Brown, an analyst for HealthLeaders, a Nashville-based organization which studies health care plans.

“They’ve both got a lot of money, and a lot of political clout,” Brown said.

In Washington’s Senate race, Nethercutt has more money from doctors, particularly the specialists who are more likely to face lawsuits and high malpractice premiums.

His total from political action committees tied to medical groups stands at $86,750, and includes money from groups currently backing a separate 30-minute ad urging Murray and seatmate Maria Cantwell to back malpractice caps.

One of the doctors who appears in that ad, Everett neurosurgeon Steve Klein, also appears in the Nethercutt ad.

Murray has reported $78,450 from medical PACs, although much of it comes from hospitals, nurses and physicians assistants rather than doctors.

She also has some $65,000 from legal PACs set up by large law firms, and $8,000 from the trial lawyers PAC.

Nethercutt has a total of about $10,000 from law firm PACs, and regularly describes himself as “a recovering lawyer.”

Nethercutt, like President Bush, supports a House measure with federal limits on certain malpractice awards, and co-sponsored the House bill that passed earlier this year with strong GOP support.

Murray says caps should be left to states, and supports a Senate bill with incentives for good doctors and ways to expose negligent ones, plus tax credits for doctors in high-risk specialties.

The political reality, analysts said, is that neither bill is likely to pass before Congress adjourns, and states will probably continue to balk at national jury restrictions being placed on their courts.

“The states will always want to control that,” predicted Brown.

State officials are also opposed to the AHPs that can get around the coverage requirements they place on all other insurance plans.

So are some powerful Republicans like Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, the chairman of the Senate Health Committee, which helps explain why that proposal is languishing in the Senate, even though it passed the House and has Bush’s support.