Bush & Gore Pitch Healthcare Plans to Missouri Voters

Eight years after healthcare loomed large in Bill Clinton's first campaign for the White House, our healthcare system continues to have critical needs, and the quest for answers seems to go on and on.

According to the latest CBS News poll, there is majority support for a federal role in healthcare, for helping seniors pay the cost of prescription drugs, and for giving patients the right to sue their HMOs.

The devil, as usual, is in the details.

Forty-four million people in the United States have no health insurance. More than a third of US seniors have no prescription drug coverage and can't afford to pay retail. Depressing statistics, but both Democrats and Republicans say they believe that healthcare issues may very well decide this year's presidential election.

Both candidates are running as fast as they can away from anything resembling Clinton's disastrous attempt in 1993 to pass one big healthcare reforms package. Dr. Robert Blendon, professor of health policy and political analysis at Harvard University, says he thinks the Republicans learned something, too: that they couldn't ignore healthcare.
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