Health Care: The Republicans’ Plans

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/06/06/health-care-the-republicans-plans/

Health Care: The Republicans’ Plans

by Seth Michaels, Jun 6, 2007

On Tuesday, the 10 hopefuls currently making a run for the Republican presidential nomination met for a debate at St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H. Overwhelmingly, the candidates focused on Iraq and national security. Domestic issues important to working families weren’t much on the radar screen, but the audience did get some insight into how Republicans would address health care.

The Democratic debate on Sunday provided an opportunity for presidential hopefuls John Edwards, Barack Obama and Dennis Kucinich to talk about their specific proposals for widening access to health care. Likewise, last night’s debate gave several Republicans a chance to offer ideas on health care.

Two audience members asked questions on health care, one of the most important issues for working families. Doug Hall talked about the low cost of prescription drugs abroad; Joshua Williamsen, via e-mail, asked about the structure and funding of health insurance.

In response to a question on prescription drugs, Rudy Giuliani announced his plan to tackle the health care crisis: increasing the extent to which it’s a private, individual responsibility. He offered a proposal of tax credits to purchase coverage from private companies, as well as “health savings accounts” through which individuals could pay for noncatastrophic medical treatment out of pocket.

As The Washington Post’s Chris Cilizza noted, Giuliani also used the opportunity to criticize Democratic plans to expand health care coverage. He brought up the red-flag (pardon the pun) term “socialized medicine,” a phrase that many on the stage would repeat through the debate.

FULL story at link.

[BushOut06]

1. Health care should be a human right

And I don't mean "health insurance". That's a bunch of bullshit designed solely to make people rich. Notice how health insurance companies always try to worm their way out actually providing serious health care when you need it.

[Warpy]

2. Illness is not a consumer decision and can't be based upon

income and financial security. It's a life and death issue and comparison shopping in a life or death crisis is such a silly idea it's a wonder the pubbies keep swallowing it. The free market model doesn't apply to health care and never did. It was a charity operation, then it was a non profit operation, and the insistence of the supply siders that it be dragged into the for profit sector has been an unqualified disaster.

Incremental measures will not help. The system is so badly broken that half measures and band aids will simply no longer put it together enough to wheeze through another callous administration. It has to be dealt with NOW, taken out of the for profit market place, and administered through Medicare the way it was supposed to have been when Medicare was started over 40 years ago.

Their way doesn't work, will never work, and people are dying to the tune of 18,000 a year over their failed experiment.

Single payer NOW. We can't accept anything less. Our lives depend on it.