GOVERNOR’S RACE: Candidates Concur On Health Care Reform

      Health care reform "has gotten scant attention in the upcoming" gubernatorial election because both "Republican contender Dan Lungren and Democratic hopeful Gray Davis agree that the system needs to be tinkered with." The San Jose Mercury News reports that while health care reform "has generated bitter opposition" at the federal level, "it is attracting broad bipartisan support in many state capitals, including California's." Health care experts say that for both Californian Democrats and Republicans, "'patient protection' is increasingly seen as a form of constituent service ... rather than a source of ideological warfare." Kaiser Family Foundation's Larry Levitt said Lungren and Davis are "pretty close together on big health care issues, like consumer protection. You don't hear much about [it], because it hasn't been a wedge between them." The Mercury News reports, however, that the candidates "are offering only moderately ambitious plans for reform." Lungren, "although a Republican by affiliation and a conservative by inclination, sounds like a populist when discussing health care," while Davis has touted medical savings accounts, a form of health coverage traditionally supported by conservatives (Krieger, 10/30). Click here for previous coverage of the candidates' views on various health care reform issues.