HillaryCare: Has Clinton sold America out to insurance companies?

[derby378]

From the AP:

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 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."

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j3s8p4osFk88PUwaGyOU5ZldeXFw

So the big winner in this whole deal isn't the average American family - it's Big Insurance. Hillary has apparently chosen the corporation over the citizen. Hasn't the woman even seen Sicko, for Wellstone's sake?

How hard can it possibly be? Universal, single-payer, not-for-profit health care. It cuts out the middlemen and the bean-counters who want to exert more and more control over the type of health care you can have. Universal, single-payer, not-for-profit health care. This was Hillary's chance, and she punted, opting to give corporations more control over whether or not you get the medication you need in order to live a healthier, happier life.

Folks, I think this "conversation with America" has left the building for good.

[Bluebear]

1. That's a bit harsh........

you forgot the pharmaceutical companies.

[derby378]

4. Pharmaceutical companies are a separate issue...

But I am questioning the wisdom of letting them advertise prescription-only medicine on television and other consumer outlets. I know there's a need to put Americans in charge of their own health decisions, but at what point does it merely become pushing? And do we really need yet another commercial for Viagra?

[harun]

11. They should be left as for profit IMHO (n/t)

[Roland99]

2. Three letters: D L C

[Bluebear]

3. T N C

They'll Never Change.

Will they?

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

6. I only need two letters CW

Corporate Whore.

Disclaimer... this is not sexist as I am non-discriminatory between female and male corporate whores.

[regnaD kciN]

8. Five Letters: NICLB...

...No Insurance Company Left Behind. :eyes:

[Vinca]

5. This is so discouraging. Our candidates most likely to succeed

are all beholden (or so it seems) to the insurance industry. There is no way in hell we'll get decent, universal healthcare as long as health insurance companies are involved. They have a fiduciary responsibility to their INVESTORS, not the poor slobs struggling to pay their health insurance premiums. The more care they deny, the more profits they make. It's ludicrous to think passing a law that says "everyone must buy health insurance" is a solution. I might as well start browsing Canadian real estate again.

[Larry Ogg]

7. Some people have to choose between food and health care.

So if health care insurance becomes mandatory, will those who can’t afford both be able to get a prescription for food, or will Hillary just say, “Feed them cake”?

[mainegreen]

9. You'd need to give a tax refund greater than 15k for poor families in states like Maine.

We have no competition, neither in insurance providers nor in hospitals.
Costs here are nutso.
Think they'll give breaks that size?
Won't happen.
Implementing a plan like this is evil.

[Tesha]

10. Was that not evident to you in her 1993 plan???

Even then, she was still arranging for insurance
companies to remain very profitable.

Tesha

[derby378]

12. I wasn't a Democrat back in 1993...

And yes, it still sounded rather icky at the time.