Clinton to Offer Health Care Plan (Ugh!)

[SoCalDem]

Clinton to Offer Health Care Plan
The Associated Press - 3 hours ago
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j3s8p4osFk88PUwaGyOU5ZldeXFw
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton is unveiling a sweeping health care reform proposal Monday that would require every American to carry health insurance and offer federal subsidies to help reduce the cost ...

With a price tag of about $110 billion per year, Clinton's "American Health Choices Plan" represents her first major effort to achieve universal health coverage since 1994, when the plan she authored during her husband's first term collapsed. The former first lady says she has learned from that experience, which almost derailed Bill Clinton's presidency and helped put Republicans in control of Congress for years to come. Aides say she has jettisoned the complexity and uncertainty of the last effort in favor of a plan that stresses simplicity, cost control and consumer choice.

The centerpiece of Clinton's plan is the so-called "individual mandate," requiring everyone to have health insurance — just as most states require drivers to purchase auto insurance. Rival John Edwards has also offered a plan that includes an individual mandate, while the proposal outlined by Barack Obama does not. "It puts the consumer in the driver's seat by offering more choices and lowering costs," Neera Tanden, Clinton's top policy adviser, told The Associated Press. "If you like the plan you have, you keep it. If you're one of tens of millions of Americans without coverage or don't like the coverage you have, you will have a choice of plans to pick from and you'll get tax credits to help pay for it."

Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner, has already laid out proposals to improve health care quality and reduce costs. She was to release her universal health care plan in Iowa, the first voting state.

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:grr: Don't these people GET it? Slapping another mandate..a bill.. onto already cash-strapped people is NOT the solution to health care issues..

Insurance is the PROBLEM...not the solution

[sandnsea]

1. This is everything wrong

This is really stunning. Putting aside the profit and insurance issue, it is still every single thing people object to.

Tax credits never help working people and working people know it.
There's also mandates on business, which is going to get the business people voting against this right off the bat. Then there's the extra costs to business, which is the opposite of what small business needs to compete globally.
And while everybody will need to be mandated into something, eventually, this is not really a good platform to try to win the White House on.

It's like she took the worst of everything proposed for the last 4 years.

Democrats will never get elected with this. I'm actually really surprised at how bad this really is.

[SoCalDem]

4. And what's to prevent bosses from saying to workers

"Look..we pay $xxx.00 on your behalf for insurance, so starting on mm/dd/yy, we're gonna give this amount to you in the form of a bonus (taxable, no doubt), and you're on your own"..

[aquart]

2. I just wrote her office. It's a terrible plan. Just awful.

[Hieronymus]

3. You're so right.

[Sherman A1]

5. Don't like the sound of this one at all

I will wait until later to read it over, but why can't we have Medicare for all? It's not a perfect system, but seems to work for our Senior. Isn't that DK's proposal?

[Lasher]

13. Yes, Kucinich supports Medicare for all.

AKA Single Payer Universal Healthcare. It's the only way to go.

[SoCalDem]

27. The government fears this because

It automatically "earmarks" a significant amount of money that they like to play with..for starting wars, handing out to their pals, and using for bribes to stay elected..

Until we have a first things first approach to our tax money's use, we will never get what we deserve:grr:

[Mojambo]

6. What a nightmare. n/t

[rpannier]

7. Ooooohhhhhh...Tax credits...Wow

And for the poor who don't pay taxes -- they get what???
The shaft???!!!

I liked her as a candidate last spring, although Edwards has been my candidate since 2004. But,as time goes on...I like her less-and-less.

[Enrique]

18. with EITC you still get a refund

this might work the same way. Good question to ask.

[SoCalDem]

19. EITC is once a year, when one files? no?

yet insurance premiums are monthly-quarterly ..no?

How are poor people going to swing that one? and what if when the EITC "reimbursement" comes through just as the car one needs to get back and forth to work, breaks down? How many people will "gamble" and fix the car?

This whole thing reeks.. What do people who get laid off do? Where DOES this "extra money" come from..to keep the payments made for insurance?

For poor people or marginally employed people, insurance is a "luxury" that many cannot really afford, even if there might be a reimbursement coming at a future date..

Car insurance is mandatory here in CA, but millions of people drive uninsured because they just do NOT have the money.. they take on some cheapo bullshit insurance when it's time to renew their registration, and then they drop it until the next time around.

they gamble that they will not have an accident...just as people will gamble that they will not get sick..

[Enrique]

30. maybe the plan answers those questions

I don't think people know enough about the plan to evaluate it so definitively.

But those are all good questions about it.

[killbotfactory]

8. How will she get insurance companies to cut the costs of their premiums?

What good is choice if they are financially excluded from most health care plans?

[SoCalDem]

9. People will just have to cut down on their consumption of bon bons

mocha-chino half-caff frou-frou lattes and croissants :sarcasm:

[rpannier]

31. How about when the insurance companies throw them overboard because they get 'too' sick?

I want that addressed as well.

[Donna Zen]

10. Oh but of course!

Let's put millions of tax dollars into the pockets of people yearning to buy another yacht.

See...if you have a job then you get to pay (through the nose) and if you don't have insurance but you have the money, then you MUST give the fat cats their due. Of course the last part is really clever: if you don't have insurance and you don't have the money, then we'll give all the big money donors tax dollars.

Will anyone actually be covered if they get sick?

Well the congress will but I'm not counting on much for the rest of us.

[Lasher]

11. Individual Mandate: Hillarycare 1994 redux

Didn't she learn one single thing from her 1994 failure?

[regnaD kciN]

21. Oh, she learned something, all right...

..."Don't mess with Big Insurance."

This is nothing more than a "plan" to maximize insurance company profits, while adding another pseudo-tax (and a damn heavy one at that) on the average American.

No wonder HRC is one of the biggest recipients of insurance company contributions.

And this is the best the Democratic frontrunner can do?

Sorry to recycle a Republican slogan from back then, but "There's got to be a better way!"

[Nutmegger]

12. It's the Mitt Romney-fication of health care.

Give the illusion of "universal health care" when it's the opposite in reality.

This is sad. Too many pols are beholden to Big Pharma and Big Insurance. I'm beginning to wonder if this country will EVER see true single payer health care. Or will be be the only industrial country not to have any such program 50 years from now? :(

[JTFrog]

15. I live in big pharmaville.

I know exactly how much they control. You should have seen the panic and the non-stop private helicopters day in and day out right after the elections last year. There were throngs of thousand dollar suits closed up in boardrooms. They made their move immediately and apparently it's paying off for them.

[depakid]

22. Wouldn't it be interesting if it were Romney vs. Clinton in 2008

and the Massachusetts boondoggle (which is a lot like Hillary 2.0) starts caving in- which it surely will, given time.

And unfortunately no- the only way ordinary Americans will ever see any semblance of universal care that doesn't leave them bankrupt is to move to Canada or abroad.

[JTFrog]

14. But insurance companies

are OUR problem, not HERS. She got her paycheck.

We have two parties that represent 4% of the people and apparently 100% of the insurance industry.

[xchrom]

16. i'm a consumer -- not a citizen.

:eyes:

[JTFrog]

17. Rankles a bit don't it?

:grr:

[leftchick]

20. I totally agree SoCal

This is BULLSHIT!

:mad:

[Terri S]

23. After all the time it too for her to put this out

this was the best she could come up with? So much for her political savvy ... well, unless she's looking to make points with insurance companies.. nah.. not Hillary.

[Bluebear]

24. Edwards: You can't sit down to dinner with the drug companies, they'll eat all the food.

Horrible, horrible plan, Senator Clinton. HORRID.

[Roland99]

25. Which is why I'm voting Kucinich. He has put forth the only viable option.

[SoCalDem]

26. he's being too sensible..

It's too bad that dennis doesn't look like Romney.. he'd BE the candidate :cry:

[Roland99]

28. Which saddens me greatly that so many people who rail against the M$M and it's love of...

"pretty" celebs fall right into lockstep in backing the "pretty" candidates instead of focusing on the ideals of the platform.

[SoCalDem]

29. It's a sad fact.. people who look "different" just get excluded

in all walks of life. unless they are super clever or invent something amazing, they usually spend their lives on the periphery, and we never get the benefit of their brilliance..