October 4, 2012 | 9:02 AM |

Debating Health Care: When I Screamed Loudest At The TV

FILED UNDER: Insurance, Medicine/Science, Money, Politics, affordable care act, barack obama, debates, mitt romney, presidential election

Pretty much everyone agrees that Romney’s aggressive performance during last night’s debate is the story of the day. As The New York Times’ Tim Egan put it: “Romney was loaded with the Mormon equivalent of Red Bull, and it showed.” (That aggression may be undermined by the army of fact-checkers questioning some of Romney’s assertions, but that’s another story.)

What it will mean for the nation (and for health care) remains unclear. But here, in an admittedly partisan assessment, is the Harvard School of Public Health’s Nancy Turnbull on, among other things, when she yelled loudest at the TV and when her frustration levels peaked:

My top 5 health care moments in the debate:

1. Most frustrating discussion
President Obama did not effectively counter Governor Romney’s untrue claim that federal health reform is being financed in part by robbing $716 billion from the Medicare Trust Fund (including failing to point out that that the budget plan of Governor Romney’s running mate, Representative Paul Ryan, has the same reductions in future Medicare rates for hospitals, health plans and certain other providers). This one is complicated but the President has to have a comprehensible and effective way to rebut it.

2. Ingenue performance
Governor Romney was coy, to be polite, about his support for a Medicare voucher system, and Jim Lehrer was far too polite in his attempts to get Governor Romney to be more forthright. I wished Martha Bebinger had been moderating.

3. Go Bay State
Massachusetts provided one of the few points of agreement all night: Both candidates said that health coverage reform in Massachusetts has been a great success.

4. Moment when I screamed loudest at the TV
Governor Romney claimed that the Congressional Budget Office estimated that 20 million Americans will lose their health insurance if federal reform is implemented. The CBO estimate is actually that 32 million more Americans will have health insurance.

5. Biggest foreign policy gaffe of the night
Governor Romney’s lack of experience and knowledge in foreign affairs was apparent when he said that “America has the best health care record in the world.”

Here, if you’re still in the mood, is the full debate transcript on ObamaCare, courtesy Kaiser Health News.
Please add your own top moments and we’ll post them throughout the day.

About the author

Blogger, CommonHealth Rachel Zimmerman worked as a staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal for 10 years, most recently covering health and medicine out of the paper’s Boston bureau. Rachel has also written for The New York Times, the (now-defunct) Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the alternative newspaper Willamette Week, in Portland, Ore., among other publications. Rachel co-wrote a book about birth, published by Bantam/Random House, and spent 2008 as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT. Rachel lives in Cambridge with her husband and two daughters. View all posts by Rachel Zimmerman →

  • Dennis Byron

    Harvard School of Public Health’s Nancy Turnbull says the Most frustrating discussion in the recent presidential debate was when

    “President Obama did not effectively counter Governor Romney’s untrue claim that federal health reform is being financed in part by robbing $716 billion from the Medicare Trust Fund”

    How could the President counter that when the Medicare actuary has said that that is the case and Sec. Sebelius testified that that’s what PPACA does before Congress. (I think the president himself has admitted it although I can’t find a link.) It’s a perfectly legal way to finance PPACA and similar techniques have been used by both parties for years.

    Of course the President could have argued theat the word “robbing” was over the top rhetorically (did Romney really use that word?) but that’s another tough counter argument for a guy who uses the word voucher rhetorically in every other sentence to describe the Wyden-Ryan plan.

    Turnbull also criticizes Romney for not saying that

    “Representative Paul Ryan, has the same reductions in future Medicare rates for hospitals, health plans and certain other providers…”

    But why should Romney do that? He is not in favor of that aspect of the Ryan budget and has said so many times.