Time: Clinton and Sanders Offer Competing Visions of Health Care

[portlander23]

Clinton and Sanders Offer Competing Visions of Health Care

Hillary Clinton will announce a detailed plan to reduce the cost of prescription drugs and build on President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, as she seeks to head off a strong primary challenge from liberal Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Under the plan, monthly out-of-pocket costs for all patients would be limited at $250 per month for individuals, which her campaign said would help up to one million Americans. She would also require pharmaceutical companies to pay higher rebates to Medicare in exchange for the federal program insuring prescriptions drugs, a measure her campaign says would save the program $100 billion.

Clinton’s plan would also allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices, using its leverage and purchasing power of more than 40 million enrollees to drive down drug costs. It’s a measure Clinton supported during her 2008 campaign.

Sanders’ plans to address rising drug costs are similar in important ways to Clinton’s. He has introduced legislation that would also allow Medicare to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies to lower the prices of prescription drugs. Sanders also supports allowing the importation of drugs, and his legislation calls for individuals and pharmacists to import generic versions of prescription drugs from Canada, where drug prices are significantly lower than in the United States.

Sanders has offered a more radical plan, supporting a single-payer system of the kind common in Western Europe and Canada. Sanders’ proposal would establish healthcare as a right to all U.S. citizens and be paid for through government spending. Under his plan, for-profit health insurance companies would provide only supplemental coverage.

Sanders, who voted for the Affordable Care Act, says the legislation made important first steps, but also has said repeatedly he views health care as a human right.

Franklin D. Roosevelt State of the Union Address, January 11, 1944

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race, or creed.
Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

Mr. Sanders and Mr. Roosevelt are correct; health care is a human right.

[abelenkpe]

1. Second bill of rights

Needed now more than ever.

[OKNancy]

2. Big difference. Hillary's plan is doable

Single payer is not, at least in the near future.

[Wankle Ronnie]

3. Problem with Hillary's plan

Insurance will just pass the cost and raise the premium to cover it.

Nope. Not doable. Bernie's idea is doable and we already have something in place. Called Medicare.

[OKNancy]

5. Medicare was passed under Johnson, with Carl Albert as the Speaker

Ol' Carl pushed it though. Ain't no Carl Albert's there anymore.
Too many Republican assholes.

[arcane1]

4. That's why we can't have nice things: we accept greed as something greater than ourselves.

[OKNancy]

6. It's not acceptance, it's reality.

[arcane1]

7. It's a reality that only happens here. Civilized countries don't have this problem.

[HerbChestnut]

9. That's a defeatist attitude that won't get us anywhere.

If we've already accepted defeat then why bother fighting for change? Just hand the pharmaceutical companies the billions of dollars they want and be done with it.

[HerbChestnut]

8. So if it's not doable now...

Then when will it be? Tomorrow? Next year? In a decade? The longer we push off the types of changes we want, the more difficult they become to implement. For the first time in a long time (if ever) we have a viable candidate who is advocating for things like universal healthcare, free college tuition, and racial/economic justice. Bernie is garnering roughly 25% of the vote right now in a Democratic primary that has arguably the most well known candidate in the history of politics, and he's polling ahead of most Republican candidates nationally despite relatively poor name recognition. These are signs that say, if anything, that people are ready for big changes.

[OKNancy]

10. change Congress. That's how you will get it done

and it wouldn't matter what Democrat is in office then.

[HerbChestnut]

11. I'm glad we agree on how to make it happen.

Of course, that means you have to vote for the candidates that support those policies. I take it this means you'll be voting for Bernie now?