John Nichols: Clinton’s Prescription for Another Heath Care Reform Failure

[Larkspur]

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/18/3919/

Would someone please ask Hillary Clinton to stop coming up with health care “reform” plans that are less attractive than the dysfunctional system she proposes to replace?

The former first lady, who snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in the 1990s by responding to the demand for a sane and humane system to deliver affordable medical care to all Americans with a plan to drown the ailing in a bureaucracy designed to augment the profits of the nation’s largest insurance companies, is back with an equally heavy-handed and unappealing “reform” proposal.

The senator from New York who has emerged as the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination — based, in no small part, on romantic misrecollections of her last foray into the nation’s seemingly-endless health-care debate — wants to solve the crisis of the uninsured and the under-insured by requiring every American to obtain coverage.

Of course, the ridiculous Mitt Romney decries the Clinton campaign proposal as “European-style socialized medicine.”

But Romney knows so little about health care that he cannot even pick a smart site for a press conference on the issue — he derided the Clinton plan in front of St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan, home of the Rudolph W. Giuliani Trauma Center. that is named for his chief rival in the Republican nomination race.

The reality is that the Clinton plan is about as socialistic as a Ronald Reagan corporate tax cut.

SNIP

Hillary's plan reminds me of the one Romney signed off in Massachusetts. It too mandated everyone have health care insurance penalized those who did not sign up, but it did very little to help the poor and middle class afford quality health insurance.

Hillary is still the #2 recipient of health care insurance money and her plan makes sure that those companies will still unjustly profit off of us.

[rinsd]

1. Shorter Nichols: Its not single payer therefore worthless.

I want single payer too but I am not about to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

All of the big 3 have proposed similar healthcare plans so this is likely what we can expect to get.

But I love the notion how Hillary is somehow bought off but Edwards (whose plan is nearly identical) and Obama (whose plan is not nearly as ambitious) are somehow doing the exact same thing out of principle.

[damntexdem]

2. Single-payer nothing -- HIllary's plan is worse than worthless.

It's something to oppose.

And being specifically worked-out is no advantage. That was a major problem with the 1992-94 "reform" plan. Congress will not enact a pre-specified plan, it will create its own (at least a Democratic one acts that way -- and the lock-step GOP Congress pre-2006 would not pass any healthcare coverage reform). I'm more concerned with the goals and philosophical outlines of a plan from any candidate; because such things MIGHT influence what Congress might pass. Hillary's goals are worthy only of opposition.

[rinsd]

3. Are you even familiar with her plan?

You oppose making the fed plans available and creating a public funded MediCare style system with tax credits and subsidies for the poor?

You oppose eliminating discrimination based on pre-existing conditions?

Limiting premiums based on income?