Thread: Clinton Calls for Universal Health Care

Clinton Calls for Universal Health Care
Monday, September 17, 2007 6:26 PM EDT
The Associated Press
By BETH FOUHY Associated Press Writer

http://broadband.zoomtown.com/news/read ... CCLM_UNEWS


DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton called for universal health care on Monday, plunging back into the bruising political battle she famously waged and lost as first lady on an issue that looms large in the 2008 presidential race.

"This is not government-run," the party's front-runner said of her plan to extend coverage to an estimated 47 million Americans who now go without.

Her declaration was a clear message to Republicans, the insurance industry, businesses and millions of voters who nervously recall what sank her effort at health care reform 13 years ago in her husband's first term — fear of a big-government takeover.

In unveiling her plan, she called for a requirement for businesses to obtain insurance for employees, and said the wealthy should pay higher taxes to help defray the cost for those less able to pay for it. She put the government's cost at $110 billion a year.

Mindful of the lessons of her failed attempt, Clinton said that under her new plan anyone who is content with their health coverage can keep what they have. She insisted no new government bureaucracy would be created even as it seeks to cover tens of millions uninsured.

"I know my Republican opponents will try to equate health care for all Americans with government-run health care," Clinton said. "Don't let them fool us again. This is not government-run."

The New York senator said her plan would require every American to purchase insurance, either through their jobs or through a program modeled on Medicare or the federal employee health plan. Businesses would be required to offer insurance or contribute to a pool that would expand coverage. Individuals and small businesses would be offered tax credits to make insurance more affordable.

"I believe everyone — every man, woman and child — should have quality, affordable health care in America," Clinton told an audience at a medical center in Iowa, the early voting state that launches the nomination process.

As the front-runner, Clinton drew swift criticism from Democratic and Republican rivals, including party foes Bill Richardson and John Edwards who argued she was merely following their lead in offering a similar plan.

Clinton framed her quest as a moral imperative in which individuals, businesses, the insurance industry and the federal government each had a role to play. She said her plan would be bipartisan and would only be successful through negotiation — a sharp departure from her earlier effort.

Then, the Clinton health care task force met in secret and tried to drive legislation through Congress. Now, Clinton, a senator for seven years, spoke of compromise although she vowed to accomplish her goal in her first term if elected.

"She's running against essentially not just the other candidates but her own plan. She's trying to convince you that this is a new Clinton plan," said Robert Blendon, a professor of public health at Harvard Medical School.

To pay for her plan, Clinton said the tax cuts for Americans making $250,000 that were enacted under President Bush would be allowed to expire. She also projected she would identify $56 billion in savings through computerized record keeping, reducing the price of prescription drugs and cutting Medicare overpayments to hospitals and CEOs.

Despite the focus on letting people who are happy with their insurance keep what they have, her plan would raise taxes on some coverage for the wealthy.

The current exclusion from taxes of employer-provided health premiums would be limited for those who make more than $250,000 and have "very generous" plans. For such people, a portion of the premiums paid by the employer could become taxable income for the employee.

Joking that her proposals "won't make me the insurance industry's woman of the year," Clinton said companies would no longer be able to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions or genetic predisposition to certain illnesses.

The centerpiece of Clinton's latest effort is the so-called "individual mandate," requiring everyone to have health insurance just as most states require drivers to purchase auto insurance. Such a mandate has detractors at both ends of the political spectrum, and questions abound over how it would be enforced.

"Perhaps more than anybody else I know just how hard this fight will be," said the New York senator.

Clinton adviser Laurie Rubiner said the mandate could be enforced in a number of ways, such as denying certain tax deduction to those who refused to buy insurance. But she stressed that a specific mechanism would be worked out once the plan was passed.

Rival John Edwards has also offered a plan that includes an individual mandate, while the proposal outlined by Barack Obama does not. Obama has insisted individuals can't be forced to buy insurance until its costs are substantially reduced.

Obama released a statement Monday saying Clinton's plan is similar to one he proposed in the spring. He took a swipe at the Clinton administration's closed-door sessions on health care in the 1990s, saying "the real key to passing any health care reform is the ability to bring people together in an open, transparent process that builds a broad consensus for change."

For his part, Edwards said that on his first day in office he will submit legislation that would pull health insurance for the president, members of Congress and all political appointees unless they pass universal health care within six months.

Republican Mitt Romney, in New York City for a fundraising stop, criticized Clinton's proposal, saying, "'Hillary care' continues to be bad medicine ... in her plan, we have Washington-managed health care. Fundamentally, she takes her inspiration from European bureaucracies."

The plan that Romney helped institute while governor of Massachusetts requires the same individual insurance mandate as Clinton's and uses state subsidies to help reduce the cost of private coverage. Since then, Romney has said he would leave it up to the states to decide whether they supported such a mandate.

Campaigning in Florida, Republican Rudy Giuliani said Clinton's plans was a "pretty clear march to socialized medicine."

"Government command and control only increases costs and decreases quality," the former New York mayor said. "My approach is to encourage people to buy their own health insurance ... give people incentives to buy health insurance, not demand that they do it."

———

Associated Press Writer Ashley M. Heher in Chicago, Curt Anderson in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Nedra Pickler in Washington contributed to this report.

I was listening to the Michael Savage show today...........

The poor people (a LARGE percentage of the uninsured) are mostly covered by mediCAID. A huge percentage of what's left, are ILLEGALS according to Savage.

I know someone who just quit his job of 20 years and he and another guy started a business. His cobra was over $900/month. He found an excellent, well known health insurance that covers his whole family, with excellent benefits, for just under $250/mth.

They talk about the elderly not being insured. My mother (on medicare) has an EXCELLENT insurance which includes prescription drugs, for $23/mth. Her visits to family doctor - $15, to specialists - $35, her prescriptions now cost $29/mth instead of a small fortune (includes 3 that are NOT generic). Hospital stays are equally low in cost. Any and all testing, excellent co-payments. There is no excuse for elderly people not being insured.

In unveiling her plan, she called for a requirement for businesses to obtain insurance for employees, and said the wealthy should pay higher taxes to help defray the cost for those less able to pay for it.

It's sentiments like this that make Hillary so dangerous.

This isn't even truly public health care for every American.

We could afford to give free health care to every US Citizen. The current system is a real scam (insurance companies, hospitals and pharmaceuticals really rip off the consumer).

I don't see public health care as a negative. It would be a great way to keep illegals out of our hospitals too.

I know too many self employed people and people who don't get health insurance at work who've gotten screwed over.

I don't see public health care as a negative.

Hillary wants socialized healthcare for all like Britain, England, Russia..etc.. where because of the huge number of patients they sometimes wait 2- 3 weeks before being seen by a doctor or dentist.. some can't wait they pull their own teeth.. She will have to raise taxes big time to help fund for it.

When I have been approached by liberals asking if I support public health care, I say "Yes I do. But only for US citizens." One of them said " I don't agree with you but I see your point."

Liberal groups have been putting out such a smokescreen about social issues one needs a lexicon to decipher what the true meanings of certain phrases are: Just what demographic groups are they denoting when they say "working families" and "working Americans?"

Liberals are assembling a huge shopping list---for "trophy" programs and projects, all to be borne by added taxes. And they will need hordes of new immigrants to help pay those taxes.They will attempt to point to these as examples of success. But by the time all of these programs come to fruition---and the exodus of intelligent, industrious citizens from this country has turned into a flood--America will resemble that other USA--Union of South Africa.

I DONT SEE PUBLIC HEALTH CARE AS A NEGATIVE EITHER. MEDICAID WORKS REASONABLY WELL FOR THE ELDERLY. AND THE HEALTH CARE WE NOW HAVE THROUGH INSURANCE COMPANIES IS NOT REALLY INSURANCE.

IF YOU REALLY GET SICK, THEY TRY NOT TO PAY. AT THE TIME YOU LEAST CAN FIGHT, THEY FIGHT YOU. WHAT IS SO GOOD ABOUT THAT? IT'S A FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY. AND IN THE REALITY OF THE "SICK" WORLD, IT IS....WELL...SICK.

I HAD TO USE PUBLIC HEALTH CARE FOR AWHILE. IT WAS NOT PERFECT, BUT IT WAS JUST AS GOOD AS BEING FALSELY INSURED.

Go visit a local VA Hospital and then decide if you want the government running healthcare. Do you like going to the DMV for your driver's license, or how about city hall, do the workers treat you good? Is the environment clean and friendly? Well that's what socialized health care is going to get you. NO THANKS! The government refuses to listen to our wishes now on illegals, how do you think they will respond when we are not happy with the high income tax, poor health services, waiting months to used outdated technology, etc. Will they listen? NO.

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2007/08/17 ... 7844.shtml


August 17, 2007, 9:51 AM
10 Questions: More About Health Care
Posted by Katie Couric| 13

Right now, in the heat of August, we’ve decided to take the temperature of health care in America. It promises to be a big issue in the ’08 election, but often we don’t start learning about its intricacies until faced with serious health issues of our own. Then, the medical bills start piling up on the kitchen table, and you just don’t know where to begin.

Well, to get a handle on health care in this country, we fired off 10 Questions to two experts: On the right we had Robert Moffit, who’s the director of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Health Policy Studies. We posted his answers last week.


(Public Citizen)Now we have Dr. Sidney Wolfe, the director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group. Public Citizen is a more liberal-leaning consumer advocacy organization. He’s testified before Congress numerous times — including just last month, on Oxycontin — and he edits WorstPills.org, a website that’s updated monthly and serves as a sort of second opinion on prescription drugs.

One thing we found interesting: when we asked the two men our first question — to name the one thing they’d change about the health care system — they both began with the exact same words: The financing. And then they diverged.

1. If you could change ONE thing about our health care system, what would that be?

The financing. Instead of hundreds of profit-seeking health insurers, money should be collected and bills paid by a single government payer.

At present, insurance company overhead and the paperwork that inflicts on doctors and hospitals wastes more than $350 billion a year — money that could cover the uninsured and eliminate co-payments and deductibles for those who currently have partial coverage. Progressive income taxes would be paid, just as we now do for other financially socialized benefits such as libraries, the police, schools, Social Security and, in the health area, for Medicare. Because of the huge administrative savings, a single payer system could cover everyone without expending any more dollars.

2. Most people agree that the costs are out of control. What can be done about that?

By far, the fastest growing element of cost is wasteful health administration. The number of doctors increased 2.5-fold from 1970 to 2005, largely in proportion to growth in the population. The number of registered nurses grew a bit more slowly. But the number of health administrators increased 26-fold during the same interval.

Another rapidly growing cost is the price of prescription drugs. Unlike all other developed countries where prescription drug prices are negotiated or controlled — and as we do for the Department of Defense and for the Veterans’ Administration — the costs for everyone else in this country are largely out of control and, for many, unaffordable.

The single payer approach could cut paperwork costs drastically, and force drug prices down.

3. What works in our system? What doesn't?

Our system of medical education and our medical research are as good as most places in the world. But, because of the enormous expense of U.S. medical schools, much higher than most countries in the world, many students from poorer economic backgrounds are less likely to go into medicine.

The success of U.S. medical research would not be possible without the huge public subsidy through the NIH, now funded at more than $28 billion a year, another example of a progressively taxed, financially socialized benefit for everybody.

As discussed above, the current multiple payer financing is unaffordably wasteful and forces a larger and larger proportion of the $2 trillion we spend on health each year to fund people who are not, in any remote way, delivering medical care. They are not doctors, nurses, pharmacists or other health care providers but, in many cases, health care deniers whose job it is to fight with each other (insurance administrator vs. hospital administrator or doctor’s office administrator) to deny payments or even coverage for needed health services.

4. People come to this country from all over the world and get great medical care. But so many Americans slip through the cracks. What can be done to close this gap?

In what has been described as medical tourism, the United States, with its large pharmaceutical and medical-device industries and high-tech hospitals, has traditionally been a destination for patients, primarily those affluent enough to pay out-of-pocket, or those who have generous insurance coverage that extends beyond their countries of origin.

But recent years have also seen a flow in the opposite direction, with large numbers of American patients traveling abroad in search of less expensive and often more luxurious health care, frequently surgery.

The problem of Americans “slipping through the cracksâ€

Originally Posted by bchapp

Go visit a local VA Hospital and then decide if you want the government running healthcare. Do you like going to the DMV for your driver's license, or how about city hall, do the workers treat you good? Is the environment clean and friendly? Well that's what socialized health care is going to get you. NO THANKS! The government refuses to listen to our wishes now on illegals, how do you think they will respond when we are not happy with the high income tax, poor health services, waiting months to used outdated technology, etc. Will they listen? NO.

I just believe that a US Citizen who gets a serious illness should not lose everything they own due to absurd health care costs.

I also do not believe that a US Citizen should have to choose between medicine and food on the table.

The whole health care industry in the US is one big scam.

Medication that costs pennies to make is sold for $100+ at the expense of struggling Americans. Diseases (such as ADHD) are invented to put money in the pockets of big pharmaceuticals by selling dangerous medications.

It is the duty of the government, which is by the people for the people to somehow put a stop to this all this. Regardless of whether the answer is price regulation, national healthcare, etc. something has to be done.

Illegals and welfare cases get free healthcare while hardworking US Citizens don't. I think that's wrong.