Clinton: Health Care 2.0
Submitted by R. Neal on Mon, 2007/09/17 - 10:28am

Hillary Clinton will unveil her plan for universal health coverage in Iowa today. According to the Associated Press, the plan will cost about $110 billion per year and includes the following:

• Requires all individuals to purchase health insurance

• Businesses must offer health insurance to all employees or contribute to a government-run pool

• A small business tax subsidy to offset the cost of providing coverage

• Medicare and the federal employee health insurance plan would be opened up to those who can't get insurance through an employer

The plan would be funded by ending Bush tax cuts for those making more than $250K.

UPDATE: This plan isn't very good, but for exactly the opposite reasons expressed here.

Another fine example of people who don't even bother to read past "Hillary" before offering up idiotic kneejerk reactions, and who have decided to be part of the problem instead of the solution. The irony is that they are too stupid to realize that the Clinton plan perpetuates what they already have which they seem to think is such a great deal, until they might actually need it. I guess they have a problem with eliminating tax cuts for those making over $250K, as if it might apply to them. Hope springs eternal, I guess.

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jah's picture

Well, when you put it that

Submitted by jah on Mon, 2007/09/17 - 10:56am.

Well, when you put it that way.

I sure would like to see a real healthcare package put forth by one of the candidates. This sounds like more bandaiding of the current system.

Andy Axel's picture

Requires all individuals to

Submitted by Andy Axel on Mon, 2007/09/17 - 11:02am.

Requires all individuals to purchase health insurance

Bzzt. Wrong answer.

This is an obvious sop to the corporate masters who developed the (thankfully failed) 1.0 "managed competition" plan.

____________________________

I'm a guy in a Reagan mask -- and I'm running for President!

R. Neal's picture

Yep, more of the same old

Submitted by R. Neal on Mon, 2007/09/17 - 12:00pm.

Yep, more of the same old same old. Any plan that ties health insurance to employment is 180 degrees in the wrong direction.

I liked this part:

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.

I'm not sure Romney even paid any attention to Clinton's plan, because I don't see any "Washington-managed" health care (code speak for "socialized medicine") or any European style reforms at all. It's more of the same old same old they all want to perpetuate to protect corporate industrialized health care.

Kucinich has the only real plan that would actually change anything: HR676. It doesn't stand a chance, though, because of Clinton and Romney style policies.

Rachel's picture

Kevin Drum points out an

Submitted by Rachel on Mon, 2007/09/17 - 12:31pm.

Kevin Drum points out an interesting facet of Hillary's health care proposal.

"The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones." - John Maynard Keynes

Virgil Proudfoot's picture

Hillary is now the insurance companies' number-one asset

Submitted by Virgil Proudfoot on Mon, 2007/09/17 - 12:38pm.

Now that Frist is out of the picture, Senator Clinton is the number-one recipient of insurance-company bribes--er, I mean campaign contributions--in the US Senate.

How could we expect her bold new "plan" to be anything but her payback to the special interests who own her?

If the general election turns out to be Romney vs. Hillary, both of whom seem to be proposing exactly the same thing, I think I'll stay home.

Rachel's picture

If the general election

Submitted by Rachel on Mon, 2007/09/17 - 12:50pm.

If the general election turns out to be Romney vs. Hillary, both of whom seem to be proposing exactly the same thing, I think I'll stay home.

I'm not particularly enamored of Hillary's ideas on health care, but attitudes like the one you just expressed are why we've had the mess we've had the last 6 years.

"The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones." - John Maynard Keynes

Virgil Proudfoot's picture

Republican Lite vs. Republican Liter

Submitted by Virgil Proudfoot on Mon, 2007/09/17 - 2:18pm.

I'm not particularly enamored of Hillary's ideas on health care, but attitudes like the one you just expressed are why we've had the mess we've had the last 6 years.

And what is the difference between Hillary's and Mitt's plans? Both include government mandates for individuals to purchase private health insurance, with a promise for the government to subsidize those who can't afford it.

Care to guess which part of that would actually become law under either Mitt or Hillary?

Also, I can just see Hillary bombing the living hell out of Iran and Syria to prove what big balls she has as commander-in-chief. She could easily be even worse on that front than Bush.

If it's Rudolph the G vs. Hillary, I'd probably hold my nose and vote for the possibly lesser evil. If it's Mitt vs. Hillary, then I truly don't see the point in bothering.

Rachel's picture

Yeah, and there was no

Submitted by Rachel on Mon, 2007/09/17 - 9:35pm.

Yeah, and there was no difference between Gore & Bush in 2000 either.

Do you think Hillary and Mitt might have slightly different ideas on abortion? Civil liberties? Supreme Court nominees? Etc, etc, etc.

I learned a long time ago not to let the better be the enemy of the good - especially where politics are concerned.

P.S. And I don't think Hillary has any particular need to prove how big her ovaries are. She seems pretty confident about that to me.

"The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones." - John Maynard Keynes

Carole Borges's picture

A gender based cheap shot...

Submitted by Carole Borges on Mon, 2007/09/17 - 9:51pm.

Why assume Clinton has anything to prove when it comes to war just because she's a woman? Some women do make up their own minds, Virgil. They don't need to copy men and "have balls". Strong women have their own power and it doesn't necessarily rest in their pants either. Bomb envy makes about as much sense as penis envy--a thought that has always made me snicker a bit.

Pam Strickland's picture

well, no

Submitted by Pam Strickland on Mon, 2007/09/17 - 2:30pm.

I was looking forward to this when I saw it somewhere yesterday, but this is no good.

I'm still looking for someone who has some sense in this area.

Pam Strickland

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." ~Kurt Vonnegut

Virgil Proudfoot's picture

Physicians for a National Health Program on HillaryCare 2.0

Submitted by Virgil Proudfoot on Tue, 2007/09/18 - 11:50am.

These guys always say it best. See the Comment at the bottom of the linked page.

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2007/september/hillary_clintons_a.php

To make a long story short, it's a plan designed to fail, just like the Clintons' last healthcare plan. The Clintons campaigned in 1992 on the promise of a national health program; when the Republicans said "boo," they gave up and let the HMOs loose. Then they went for their real agenda: NAFTA, welfare "reform," and school uniforms. Why are so many Democrats willing to ignore such recent history and elect the same Republicans-in-disguise again?

As for Hillary's warmongering, all you need to do is look at her statements on Iran. She'll be saluting Bush as he tells the bombers to fly. Or she'll send them herself if she manages to become prez. For those who don't think a woman is capable of this kind of thing, I need only mention Maggie Thatcher--who was even worse than Reagan.

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