By Mike Shields
KHI News Service
WASHINGTON, D.C., Sept. 20
A series of forums meant to give the presidential candidates an opportunity to spell out the details of their respective health care plans will begin Monday with Democratic primary candidate John Edwards.
“Not since 1992 has there been such a focus in the presidential campaign on health care,” said Chip Kahn, president of the Federation of American Hospitals, which is organizing the forums along with Families USA.
“Rather than brief and meaningless sound bites, the forums will allow the candidates to explain how America”s health care system will change if they are elected in 2008,” said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA.
The forums are being paid for by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City, Mo. and the California Endowment of Los Angeles.
Over the next few months, each candidate alone will face a panel of health-care journalists in hour-long sessions that will be moderated by Susan Dentzer of the PBS program “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer.”
The other journalists on the panel will be Julie Rovner of National Public Radio, Laurie McGinley of the Wall Street Journal and Timothy Johnson of ABC News. Each has experience covering health care issues.
So far, Democrats Edwards, Dennis Kucinich, Joe Biden, Christopher Dodd, Hillary Clinton and Bill Richardson have confirmed they will attend.
Republicans John McCain, Mike Huckabee, and Ron Paul also have agreed to the forums.
More information is available at
http://presidentialforums.health08.org
, a Web site developed by the Kaiser Family Foundation for the forum series. The foundation plans live Webcasts of each forum.
The Edwards forum will be at 10 a.m. CDT Monday; Kucinich at 7:30 a.m., Oct. 25; Biden at 10:30 a.m., Oct. 25; McCain at 9 a.m., Oct. 31; and Dodd at 10 a.m., Nov. 1.
Times for Clinton, Huckabee, Richardson and Paul will be announced later, officials said, and more forums also are expected to be announced as other candidates confirm.
A spokesman for Families USA said MacNeil-Lehrer Productions planned to have several cameras at the forums for a possible PBS special to air later. He also said C-SPAN is likely to air some or all of the forums.
“National Public Radio also will be providing a soft feed to all their stations and they”ll have the option to use them as they see fit,” said Dave Lemmon of Families USA.
He said various other news organizations also would be covering the forums.
“We know from our Kaiser tracking poll that health care ranks as the number one domestic issue Democrats, Republicans and independents want to hear the candidates talk about,” said Drew Altman, president of the Kaiser Family Foundation.
-Mike Shields is a staff writer for KHI News Service, which specializes in coverage of health issues facing Kansans. He can be reached at
mshields@khi.org
or at 785-233-5443, ext. 123.