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Taxes and money are on everyone’s mind right now.  The other unavoidable eventuality, death, has gotten precious little media coverage.

Healthcare is a $2 trillion dollar industry, and affects every single person.  Unfortunately, our healthcare options are determined primarily by politicians and lobbyists– individuals who are not licensed to practice medicine, nor qualified to provide a comprehensive, unbiased view of the real needs of our broken healthcare system.

I don’t suggest that doctors have all the answers, but I can tell you their perspective will give more weight to long-term patient benefit rather than short-term political or monetary gains.  One of the premier medical journals, the New England Journal of Medicine, provides insightful commentary on each candidate’s plan– some passages excerpted below.  There are no right answers, but we at least have the capacity to choose.  Please take a moment to consider what is important to you, and how your vote can shape the quality of your life.

Three “Inconvenient Truths” about Health Care
Victor R. Fuchs, Ph.D.

The present impasse must give way to recognition that major change will not be an option much longer: it will be a necessity. Divergent interests and values must find some common ground, and all sides must acknowledge that the status quo is no longer sustainable, given three “inconvenient truths” about health care.

1. Over the past 30 years, U.S. health care expenditures have grown 2.8% per annum faster, on average, than the rest of the economy. If this differential continues for another 30 years, health care expenditures will absorb 30% of the gross domestic product — a proportion that exceeds that of current government spending for all purposes combined.

2. Advances in medicine are the main reason why health care spending has grown 2.8% per annum faster than the rest of the economy

3. Universal coverage requires subsidies for the poor and those too sick to afford insurance at an actuarially appropriate premium; it also requires compulsion for those who don’t want to help pay for the subsidies or who want a “free ride,” expecting that they will get care if they need it.

Primum Non Nocere — The McCain Plan for Health Insecurity
David Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.P.

The most important questions raised by the health care proposals of the presidential candidates concern their values and judgment. These will guide a new president through the tortuous, unpredictable process of leading health care change. The specifics of candidates’ proposals matter. But more important is what health plans communicate about a prospective president’s fundamental beliefs and character.

By this standard, John McCain emerges not as a maverick or centrist but as a radical social conservative firmly in the grip of the ideology that animates the domestic policies of President George W. Bush. The central purpose of President Bush’s health policy, and John McCain’s, is to reduce the role of insurance and make Americans pay a larger part of their health care bills out of pocket… Specifically, the McCain plan would profoundly threaten the current system of employer-sponsored insurance on which more than three fifths of Americans depend, increase reliance on unregulated individual insurance markets (which are notoriously inefficient), and leave the number of uninsured Americans virtually unchanged. A side effect of the McCain plan would be to threaten access to adequate insurance for millions of America’s sickest citizens.

Symptomatic Relief, but No Cure — The Obama Health Care Reform
Joseph R. Antos, Ph.D.

A central premise of Senator Barack Obama’s campaign for the presidency is that America is ready — this time — for sweeping health care reform. He has laid out a vision for reform that promises health insurance for (nearly) everyone, with coverage as good as that enjoyed by members of Congress.

The Obama plan offers a host of policy proposals that, in the main, address the symptoms but not the underlying disease that afflicts the health care system. We surely could use some symptomatic relief. However, failing to address the perverse incentives that drive health care spending inexorably upward, making insurance unaffordable for millions and shaping (or misshaping) the practice of medicine, will leave us worse off than we are today… Reforms as sweeping as the Obama plan come with a big price tag.

Early in his campaign, Obama recognized that the success of health care reform rests on the plan’s ability to slow spending growth and make health care affordable for everyone. His plan would reorganize the health-insurance market — but not change the basic financial incentives in the system that drive up spending. Although the plan would significantly increase the number of Americans with health insurance, it remains to be seen whether that would come at a price Americans would be willing to pay.