First-tier Republicans skip cancer forum

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — The biggest names in the GOP presidential primary — Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) — skipped the first-ever forum on cancer sponsored by Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong Foundation.

Two Republican candidates who appeared, Sen. Sam Brownback (Kan.) and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, promised to rejuvenate a “war on cancer” as president, but disagreed over the need for a federal ban on smoking in public places.

{mosads}The absence of the first-tier candidates left the floor to Brownback and Huckabee, who are competing for the conservative votes that are so crucial in Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucus.

The two candidates shared their own personal experiences with cancer, which is the leading killer of people under 85 years of age in the United States.

Brownback, for example, spoke of the shock of seeing his father, not then 40, laid up in the hospital after surgery for colon cancer. Brownback’s dad eventually recovered, as did Brownback from his own scare with melanoma.

As president, the senator said he would increase research funding for cancer and work to improve access for terminally ill patients to new drugs through measures like a bill he introduced in 2005 and plans to reintroduce this fall.

When asked about specifics, Brownback said he would leave it up to local and state governments to determine their policy relating to smoking bans in public places.

The senator also said he would work to improve how the current healthcare system works rather than make the wholesale changes Democrats promise through universal healthcare plans.

Brownback said he supported, for example, health savings plans pushed by the Bush administration and the creation of a high-risk pool so that even people with chronic illness could get insurance coverage.

Huckabee, who spoke after Brownback, held the audience of around 1,000 in rapt attention as he described his own experience with the disease. In 1975, Huckabee’s wife was diagnosed with a tumor in her spine.

Doctors initially thought the cancer was inoperable. Then they said the surgery would likely leave her unable to walk or have children. None of those warnings proved correct (the Huckabees have three kids), but Huckabee said he empathized with cancer survivors who could not get insurance even after years of the disease being in remission.

“The whole insurance system is upside down,” he said.

The former governor added that he would put more emphasis on preventing chronic illnesses, including cancer. The primary policy goal should be “universal health,” not necessarily universal healthcare coverage, he said.

Huckabee also said he favored health savings accounts, but pledged to help lower-income people begin to build up their accounts as an incentive to healthier living. “Most people don’t have money at the start to put into a health savings plan,” he said.

Differing from Brownback, Huckabee said he would work to ban smoking nationally at the federal level as president and noted his similar work at the state level.

On Monday, four Democrats, including top-tier candidates Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and John Edwards, pushed universal healthcare coverage as part their plan to cut the incidence of cancer.

Compared to the Republicans, Democrats seemed to enjoy a warmer response from what was a bigger crowd during the first day of the forum.