Hillary-Care Part 2

[Nbadan]

Not universal-health care, universal insurance.....


WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday will lay out a plan to secure health insurance for all Americans while severely limiting the ability of insurers to deny coverage or charge higher premiums to people with chronic illnesses and other medical problems, her aides and advisers say.

Mrs. Clinton’s purpose, they said, is not only to cover the 47 million people who are uninsured but to improve the quality of health care and make insurance more affordable for those who already have it.

The goal of Mrs. Clinton’s plan, to be outlined in a speech in Des Moines, is similar to that of the ill-fated plan that she and President Bill Clinton pushed in 1993 and 1994.

But advisers to Mrs. Clinton, a Democrat from New York, said Saturday that she would try to avoid the perception that she was advocating a bureaucratic, big-government solution. That perception, promoted by conservative Republicans and the insurance industry, sank the Clinton plan in 1994

NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/us/politics/16clinton.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin)

Ok, but this would be better received than from someone who doesn't share their bed with big pharmacy money....

[Wild Cobra]

So she has a goal. Where is the plan? All these years to consider it.

There will never be a plan, This is just another empty promise to buy votes with.

Should it ever happen, we will become just another country. Our economy could never support the taxes of the extra welfare requirements and maintaining our economic growth, living standards, etc. Something would have to go to unsure everyone, because of the dramatic increase in federal spending.

So many other reason too.

[Nbadan]

Even the liberal-leaning, The Nation, sees through Billary's multi-billion dollar health-care give-away...


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

The Clinton plan maintains the current system of for-profit, insurance-industry defined health care delivery. The only real change is that, in return for minimal requirements regarding coverage of those with preexisting conditions, the government would pump hundreds of billions in federal dollars into the accounts of some of the country's wealthiest corporations. The plan's tax credit scheme would buy some more coverage for low-income families, which is good, but it would do so at a cost so immense that, ultimately, Clinton's plan will be as tough a sell as the failed 1993 "Hillarycare" proposal.

America is ready for health care reform.

But it is not ready for more bureaucracy, more expense and more revenue for insurance companies.

Despite what Mitt Romney says, Clinton and the Democrats would have a far easier time selling ``European-style socialized medicine" than what the senator from New York is peddling. And that does not even take into account the potential appeal of a uniquely American single-payer system that might intelligently combine the necessary efficiency of a publicly-funded and defined payment program for covering costs with the appealing prospect of allowing Americans to choose their own basic plans and doctors.

Clinton could have proposed such a system. Indeed, she could have modeled it on the plan she and other members of Congress now enjoy.

Instead, she chose to propose a scheme defined not by the needs or desires of the American people but by the demands of existing insurance firms and a dysfunctional for-profit health care industry.

If the senator is nominated and elected, and if she advances the initiative she unveiled Monday, there will be no health-care reform. And America's uninsured and under-insured millions will be doomed to suffer for another decade or so because Hillary Clinton was incapable of extracting herself from the grip of the corporations that have made it so hard for the Americans to get the care they need.

The Nation (http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters?pid=233626)

[BradLohaus]

How about this one from Billary

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070918/ap_on_el_pr/clinton_ap_interview_6

She said she could envision a day when "you have to show proof to your employer that you're insured as a part of the job interview — like when your kid goes to school and has to show proof of vaccination," but said such details would be worked out through negotiations with Congress.

I wonder if the comparison of the American people to children was intentional.

[Nbadan]

People like paying upwards of $12,000 a year for limited coverage....Oh good grief....

Why Clinton Embraced Employer-Based Insurance
Candidate Discovers Workers and Bosses Attached to Status Quo
By LAURA MECKLER
September 19, 2007


WASHINGTON -- Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said in drafting a new health-care plan she considered doing away with the employer-based system but concluded that people like it. "We looked at every permutation of how you get to universal health care," the New York senator said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. "There's great attachment to the employer-based system, even though it is eroding."

...

Sixty percent of employers offered health insurance this year, down from 69% in 2000. Large companies with 200 or more workers almost universally provide coverage, but there has been a marked decline among smaller companies, to 45% this year from 57% in 2000, according to a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research and Educational Trust.

"Many employees who had health insurance through their employees were also adamant they didn't want to give it up, which is why our plan starts with that reassurance. That if you like what you have we will just give you whatever you need to continue that. You've got the doctor you want, the hospital you prefer, that's fine." Mrs. Clinton said she was surprised to hear employers tell her that they didn't want to give up that role.

...

Mrs. Clinton's plan, proposed this week, attempts to shore up the employer system, not replace it. The plan looks to lock up large businesses as insurance providers by requiring them to provide coverage or pay into a government fund. Small businesses would be offered a tax credit if they provide insurance. All employers would be given the chance to shop for plans in a new government-run network of private and public plans. Mrs. Clinton said that if large employers got organized, they could pressure health-insurance companies to make important changes, such as insisting on electronic health records and standardized forms. She promised that if elected president, she would do the same for the health plans that serve federal workers.

...

Also, the Clinton campaign said Mrs. Clinton doesn't see punishment for people who remain uninsured but is not ruling it out either. She said she hopes that incentives, including tax credits, would be enough to get people to voluntarily get insurance... Next year, Massachusetts will begin fining people who fail to prove they have health insurance. Those fines will eventually equal half the cost of the least expensive plan available to them. For some, that figure would top $1,000 per year.

Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119016234599131867.html)

Still wondering what's keeping the SA economy booming, despite a loss in real wages for a majority of San Antonians since 2001?

Health insurance premiums paid by workers and their employers rose an average of 6.1 percent this year, outpacing inflation and pay increases and taking a bigger chunk out of families' budgets, according to a new survey.

Premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance for the average family topped $12,000 -- with employees picking up about one-fourth of that cost -- although the increase in premiums slowed for a fourth straight year.

Insurance costs probably will rise again next year, according to the survey released today by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health care research organization that annually tracks the cost of health insurance. Many of the more than 3,000 companies surveyed said they planned to make significant changes to their health plans and benefits, and nearly half said they were very or somewhat likely to raise premiums.

This year, premiums reached an average of $12,106 for a family of four, with workers paying, on average, $3,281 of that. Premiums to cover a single person cost $4,479, with employees paying $694. The portions both families and single people pay in premiums has nearly doubled since 2001.

The companies reported that premiums for families increased 6.1 percent, on average. That's the lowest growth rate since 1999, when premiums rose 5.3 percent and cost an average of $2,196 for individuals and $5,791 for families. Health care premiums rose 7.7 percent last year, when individuals paid an average of $4,242 and families paid $11,480.

[xrayzebra]

So she has a goal. Where is the plan? All these years to consider it.

There will never be a plan, This is just another empty promise to buy votes with.

Should it ever happen, we will become just another country. Our economy could never support the taxes of the extra welfare requirements and maintaining our economic growth, living standards, etc. Something would have to go to unsure everyone, because of the dramatic increase in federal spending.

So many other reason too.

Oh, they will try if elected and maybe even if they
don't win the WH. Just to keep the pot stirred. They
would love to take care of you. In the own way.

[Kyle Smith]

Mickey Mouse for President

[Nbadan]

IN other news, the real number of U.S. uninsured in skewed by those on medicade/medicare...almost 89 million Americans under 65, or nearly one in three, went without health insurance for parts of the last two years....


WASHINGTON - More than one-third of the U.S. population under the age of 65 went without health insurance for all or part of the last two years, a consumer group said on Thursday.

The nonprofit Families USA group used data from last month's U.S. Census Bureau report that found 47 million Americans went without health insurance for all of 2006.

Families USA broke down that figure and calculated that 89.6 million people under age 65 — 34.7 percent — went without health insurance at some point during 2006-2007. It used a projection for the remaining months of this year.

After age 65, Americans become eligible for Medicare, the state-federal health insurance plan for the elderly.

"The huge number of people without health coverage over the past two years helps to explain why health care has become the top domestic issue in the 2008 presidential campaign," Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, said in a statement.

"The expansion of health coverage in America is no longer simply a matter of altruism about other people but a matter of intense self-interest."

MSNBC (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20896355)