AN UNINFORMED ELECTORATE

AN UNINFORMED ELECTORATE
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Most Americans rank the intricacies of the health care system among the unfathomable mysteries of life, such as quantum physics and socks that disappear in the wash. Yet there are times when the perceived evils of HMOs or Hillary Clinton's secret health plan force the issue to the front burner.
This summer is a case in point. News headlines were dominated by the disappearance of Washington intern Chandra Levy. But researchers for the Kaiser Family Foundation found that as many Americans said they were closely following the stories about President George W. Bush's prescription drug plan as the racy stories about Ms. Levy.
That would seem to be good news. The staggering growth in prescription drug spending -- which increased by $17.7 billion between 1998 and 1999 -- is a major contributor to the high cost of health care. With increasing health care costs and 42.5 million people already lacking insurance, business and government are having to make difficult choices that affect all Americans. The more who participate in that debate, the better the chances of a fair resolution.
Facade: But when researchers probed more deeply, the facade of an informed electorate collapsed like a vacation sand castle. When asked for details of the president's plan, 42 percent confessed that they did not know. Another 21 percent said the president had proposed expanding Medicare to include a prescription drug benefit, which is not true. And 7 percent erroneously said the president proposed giving tax credits to seniors with high drug costs. Just 31 percent knew that the president proposed issuing cards that would enable the elderly to buy drugs at a discount.
In this case, details matter. The prescription drug plan proposed by Mr. Bush would provide modest discounts similar to those already widely available through existing "buyer's club" plans. This is substantially less than what either candidate promised during last year's presidential campaign.
It is possible to create meaningful Medicare prescription drug coverage. But that will require political skill by the president, difficult choices by Congress and an electorate that pays attention to the details as well as the headlines.
WORKING FAMILIES SHOULDN'T GO HUNGRY
Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune: In its landmark 1996 overhaul of welfare, Congress made a compact with poor Americans: You find work, the government will reward you. Since then the nation's poor have mostly upheld their end of the bargain. The number of poor adults holding jobs has skyrocketed; the number collecting welfare has plunged.
Washington's performance, however, has been mixed. Congress has put money into child care subsidies for low-income families and health insurance for poor children, but it has neglected other strands of the safety net. This fall it should begin to repair the damage.
The most egregious example is food stamps, the little vouchers that help poor families buy groceries. The number of eligible families has fallen by about 25 percent since 1995, but funding for the program has fallen by 40 percent. Of all families eligible for food stamps, the share of those who actually receive them has slipped from 71 percent to 59 percent. The Agriculture Department, which administers the food-stamp program, says that a strong economy explains only one-fourth to one-third of the decline in food stamp usage.
Immigrant families: If families were voluntarily giving up government aid, that would be progress. But other causes seem to be at work. Federal investigations found that, after welfare reform, many states discouraged needy families from applying for food stamps even when they were eligible. For example, many families who left cash welfare remained eligible for food stamps -- but nobody bothered to tell them. Congress also changed the rules, cutting off large groups of immigrant families and letting inflation eat away at food stamp coverage.
This fall Congress can make amends when it takes up the Agriculture Department's budget. That has not happened so far in the House Agriculture Committee, which is woefully underfunding food stamps compared to other food programs, but the Senate has a chance to do better. It's not a matter of breaking the federal budget. Congress' austere 10-year budget gives Agriculture something like $73 billion in new money over the next 10 years; House budgeters devoted just $3 billion of that to food stamps.
Isn't it a contradiction to expand the food-stamp program when the nation is trying to reduce dependency? Not really.
No serious expert thought that work, by itself, would make every welfare recipient self-sufficient. Surveys show that typical welfare "leavers" earn $6 to $7 an hour, a sum that leaves their families squarely below the poverty line. Helping them round out their household budgets is a perfectly legitimate way to reward work and prevent hardship -- and that is the long and noble pedigree of food stamps.
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