Posted by
Dana Tuszke on Thursday, September 20, 2007 11:01:34 PM
**Cross-posted from BlogHer.org.
The first time Hillary Clinton was "in office" she tried to come up
with a plan for universal health care for all Americans. I was only 14
when Clinton was the head of the Task Force on National Health Care Reform,
but I remember discussing the speech that her husband, President Bill
Clinton, gave in September 1993 in my ninth grade civics class.
He spoke about how millions of Americans "are just a pink slip away
from losing their health insurance, and one serious illness away from
losing all their savings." My family was uninsured in 1993. My father
was self-employed and couldn't afford the extremely high costs of
private insurance.
President Clinton's statement is still true today. Forty-seven
million Americans are uninsured. These 47 million Americans cannot
afford the cost of coverage, and Hillary Clinton believes her health
care plan is going to fix the corrupt system that is health insurance.
The failure of Hillary's first attempt at health care reform was
largely due to several conservatives, libertarians and insurance
companies lobbying against her "Health Security" plan, calling it
overly bureaucratic and restrictive of patient choice.
There's the word that makes people swoon and cringe simultaneously: Choice. It's an interesting rhetoric, as Ezra Klein said in a Slate article.
What is now being dubbed HillaryCare 2.0, Clinton appears to have
learned her lesson, calling it the "American Health Choices Plan" or
"Individual Mandate" plan. Clinton assures Americans will be able to
keep their current health coverage if they wish to do so, while
allowing businesses and their employees more choices of health plans.
Crystal Patterson of HillaryClinton.com blogs about some of the highlights of Clinton's plan:
* Affordable: Unlike the current health system where insurance premiums
send people into bankruptcy, the plan provides tax credits for working
families to help them cover their costs. The tax credits will ensure
that working families never have to pay more than a limited percentage
of their income for healthcare.
* Available: No discrimination. The insurance companies can't deny you coverage if you have a pre-existing condition.
* Reliable: It's portable. If you change or lose your job, you keep your health care.
As for small business owners, like my father, Patterson says
"Hillary would give tax credits to small businesses that provide
healthcare to their workers to help defray their coverage costs. This
will make small businesses more competitive and help create good jobs
with health benefits that will stay here in the US."
This plan sounds too good to be true! Am I the only one who is skeptical? Hardly.
Rich Lowry writes:
Clinton's plan would make this ramshackle system worse. She proposes
more regulations on insurers and a mandate on large employers to
provide insurance coverage or pay a tax. The regulations will make
insurance even more expensive, while the employer mandate would only
augment the current senseless system of people getting insurance
through their jobs.
Ezra Klein writes:
If I were going to not like Hillary Clinton's health care plan, this would be the case I'd make.
As it is, I think the areas in which she's vague are not areas in which
she'll fail: No politician will create an individual mandate plan and
then not offer adequate subsidies. The resulting outrage from families
who couldn't afford healthcare but were legally obligated to buy it
would destroy their career, doom their reelection, and kill the plan.
Klein also wrote about the HillaryCare ad now airing in New Hampshire.
Darleen's Place writes:
I
won't argue that there are not serious problems with how our current
health industry delivers its services and products; however, much of
the imbalance is the direct result of governmental policies ...
... policies that Hillary! wants to expand and entrench.
Katherine Kersten of Think Again writes:
"Clinton seems to understand that her new plan must involve no
trade-offs, and promise something for everyone. Hillary Care II will
apparently require insurance companies to insure everyone. Aides claim
that it will mean lower costs, and higher quality health care, across
the board... ...Is such a health care heaven possible?"
Calmer Than You Are writes:
"Americans
like choice and Hitlery knows that so she is pretending that her plan
gives us choice. We can choose to participate or not participate in her
health care plan. That sounds wonderful but the government is going to
be responsible for financing the new American HMO and employers will no
longer be providing health care options to their employees."
Fred Thompson offers his reaction to HillaryCare with this video, saying "What is it that makes liberals think the best way to help somebody is to punish them?”
Red Clay Citizen writes:
"Billary
is at it again. "HillaryCare 2.0" - socialized medicine for America -
could be on its way to a hospital near you. The alternative? --
apparently the Massachusetts-style insurance connector program proposed
by Mitt Romney. The two programs are similar in that the government
will require everyone to have health insurance (even illegal
immigrants? -- Uh ... Billary doesn't know yet)."
Elizabeth Edwards has her own concerns. She accused Clinton of
copying the health care plan outlined more than seven months ago by her
husband, John. Edwards said:
"Does Mrs. Clinton's plan seem very familiar to you? Mrs. Clinton has,
seven and a half months after John unveiled his health care plan,
unveiled a health care plan that is in every material respect just like
John's."
Townhall.com reported that Edwards calls Clinton's plan "John Edwards' health care plan as delivered by Hillary Clinton."
Reflections by Kris had this reaction to Mrs. Edwards statement:
"She doesn't sound like she's campaigning for her husband, she sounds like she's running her own campaign."
Yes, I too, would like to know why Mr. Edwards isn't speaking up for himself and calling Hillary out on the stolen goods?
To be fair, Hillary's plan is similar to John Edwards'. From the New York Times last February:
The
Edwards plan would provide tax credits or subsidies to low-income
families who cannot afford health insurance, expand Medicare and the
federal program of health care for children, and create a federal
health insurance agency that could become the basis for a single-payer
system that would eventually do away with private health insurance.