Sen. Clinton's proposed "American Health Choices Plan" would require you to have health insurance. She also proposes a tax credit, federal subsidies and corporate coverage (not required of small businesses). Additionally, insurance carriers would be required to provide coverage and cap premiums.
She tried this once before in 1993, while First Lady, with what was called "Hillarycare," a similar proposed mandate presented to five congressional committees and that was shot down as being unrealistic and coercive.
There are a few "little details" that the general public may not realize about Sen. Clinton's "plan:"
1) it would be more of a subsidization of the ill by the healthy;
2) it would actually raise premiums on the healthy;
3) it would require health insurance as a pre-condition of employment;
4) it would force health insurance on those who do not want it, perhaps because they have (and prefer) other, private coverage (at a better cost);
5) it does not really control costs; with health care accounting for over 15% of our economy, mandating coverage would increase that share;
6) the proposal seeks to end tax breaks for the wealthy (household income of $250K or more, which means middle class 2-income families pay the bill, as usual), but will cost an estimated $110Bil that could conceivably be raised in raising the tax on cigarettes, for example (since we're supposedly trying to get the public to quit smoking and curtail the billions of dollars in lawsuits versus tobacco producers);
7) people may be denied procedures they may require.
We Americans have long held that we have a right to affordable, quality health care and insurance. However, the cost of care continues to rise faster than our capacity to pay for it, for any number of reasons, law suits and malpractice insurance costs somewhere at the top of the list. We're not Canada, we're a country of states that operate autonomously to some extent, and all states would have to agree on a national health care insurance plan for it to work across the board. Good luck!
Sorry; in my humble opinion, it's the same old story all over again, repackaged with campaign ribbons, and just as unrealistic, costly and misguided as before. The story didn't fly before. Why should it now?
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Sen. Clinton's proposed "American Health Choices Plan" would require you to have health insurance. She also proposes a tax credit, federal subsidies and corporate coverage (not required of small businesses). Additionally, insurance carriers would be required to provide coverage and cap premiums.
She tried this once before in 1993, while First Lady, with what was called "Hillarycare," a similar proposed mandate presented to five congressional committees and that was shot down as being unrealistic and coercive.
There are a few "little details" that the general public may not realize about Sen. Clinton's "plan:"
1) it would be more of a subsidization of the ill by the healthy;
2) it would actually raise premiums on the healthy;
3) it would require health insurance as a pre-condition of employment;
4) it would force health insurance on those who do not want it, perhaps because they have (and prefer) other, private coverage (at a better cost);
5) it does not really control costs; with health care accounting for over 15% of our economy, mandating coverage would increase that share;
6) the proposal seeks to end tax breaks for the wealthy (household income of $250K or more, which means middle class 2-income families pay the bill, as usual), but will cost an estimated $110Bil that could conceivably be raised in raising the tax on cigarettes, for example (since we're supposedly trying to get the public to quit smoking and curtail the billions of dollars in lawsuits versus tobacco producers);
7) people may be denied procedures they may require.
We Americans have long held that we have a right to affordable, quality health care and insurance. However, the cost of care continues to rise faster than our capacity to pay for it, for any number of reasons, law suits and malpractice insurance costs somewhere at the top of the list. We're not Canada, we're a country of states that operate autonomously to some extent, and all states would have to agree on a national health care insurance plan for it to work across the board. Good luck!
Sorry; in my humble opinion, it's the same old story all over again, repackaged with campaign ribbons, and just as unrealistic, costly and misguided as before. The story didn't fly before. Why should it now?
March 28, 2008 - 8:14pmThis Comment
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