Romney vs (Clinton, Edwards, etc) on Health Care

[ChenZhen]

Im am only partially familiar with all these plans, as well as what Romney worked on while being Governor of Massechusetts (along with a different republican Governor enacted in a nearby state).

They appear to be very much the same, as far as requiring the purchase of health care by all citizens, issuing tax credits to citizens to make things affordable, and subsidizing the purchase for people below the poverty line.

Is anyone familiar with the essential differences between the health care plans being put forth by the front runner democratic candidates and those that have been implemented allready by other Republicans, including Mitt Romney. I couldn't imagine them being the same? Im curious if they are essentially the same, or if there is some underlying, drastic difference that doesn't jump out at the casual observer.



As an aside, Im not entirely sure Id favor any of these plans--the inclination of private health insurance providers to deny claims and benifits renders insurance absolutely useless in many scenerios. Paying money to a private company for them to promise to take care of you is different than paying money to an entity that *will* take care of you on demand.

[Selatius]

1. Obama doesn't require that you purchase health insurance, the others do

All of the plans bare resemblance to Romney's plan as far as mandatory health insurance requirements except Obama's.

Edward's plan includes the notion of public-private competition between Medicare and private health insurance companies. In the long-run, this may actually be the back door to a single-payer health care system. No private for-profit insurance company could compete with Medicare in terms of operating costs. Hillary's plan includes insurance pools where customers are placed into pools, where each pool can use collective bargaining power in negotiating premiums with insurance companies.

These are basically combinations of mandatory health insurance laws combined with market regulations and perhaps subsidies to the poor to purchase private health insurance. Some have dubbed this corporate welfare, since you're basically having a government make people purchase private insurance and give money to those private entities.

Kucinich's plan is in stark contrast to all others in that it advocates French-style single-payer. Generally speaking, it's much more clean, less complex, easier to understand than a conglomeration of market regulation, individual health insurance mandates, and a subsidies program for the poor. Such a program eliminates private insurance companies and places everybody into one giant pool, represented by a government entity. Said entity then has absolute bargaining power in determining the costs of medical procedures and the cost of prescription drugs with pharmaceutical companies. This program would likely use Medicare as a foundation.

[ChenZhen]

2. Thanks for the clarification about Obama (my mistake)

I too prefer Kucinich's, but thats probably not what we will be stuck voting for.

[Froward69]

4. Nor does Bidens

see

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JobcB8cM1zw

:pals: :patriot: :patriot: :patriot: :woohoo:

[TahitiNut]

5. One of the things that should be carefully noted is that ...

... when government subsidizes payments to a private corporation offering insurance for health care, they're effectively funneling taxpayer money into the equities markets and fattenting the fat cats. Insurance reserves (which are required - please don't throw me in the briar patch) are billions of dollars managed without anything approaching proper oversight - and used to play the market. It's part of the stranglehold that the financial sector has over corporations and leads to offshoring and layoffs.

Any 'reform' that includes payment subsidies to private insurance corporations is corporate welfare of the worst kind.

[sandnsea]

3. Obama's has insurance regulation

In addition to assisting people with insurance, he also creates an entity to require private insurance provide a base of set benefits, cover everybody, and justify their premiums. Dodd's is probably better, but Obama's is definitely not like Hillary's and Edwards'.