Clinton’s Prescription for Another Heath Care Reform Failure
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.
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” that 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.
John Nichols’ new book is The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders’ Cure for Royalism. Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson hails it as a “nervy, acerbic, passionately argued history-cum-polemic [that] combines a rich examination of the parliamentary roots and past use of the ‘heroic medicine’ that is impeachment with a call for Democratic leaders to ‘reclaim and reuse the most vital tool handed to us by the founders for the defense of our most basic liberties.’”
Copyright © 2007 The Nation
I often wonder why women seem to lean towards Clinton when every “solution” she has talked about would work against women’s interests. The so-called health care plan is just the latest, but we can look at Clinton’s past fervent advocacy of the Iraq war and her statements about remaining in Iraq for years; not taking nuclear weapons off the table even when dealing with non-threatening nations; pledging billions more for the already overfed military; defending Israel, as though it were a peaceful nation, even though its human rights violations cost American taxpayers precious revenue…the list goes on. Voting for her just because she’s a woman is more than wrong–it’s insane. Look at her record, listen to her rhetoric, and smarten up!
Our current batch of politicians are all beholden to the medical and insurance industries. There is no way they will come up with a plan that cuts profit from the equation, which basically means that we will never see a fair system for Americans. The United States is one of the last strongholds of for-profit medical care. They will not let go of this without a huge fight.
Just as with almost every problem we face on this planet, the core problem is corporate greed and the politicians who foster and are complicit within a system that allows it.
I smell another AMA/BigPharma cashectomy. What is our storebought polititions don’t understand about SINGLE PAYER healthcare?
Hillary’s plan is quite similar to the plan Mitt Romney started in Massachusetts, yet Romney is now calling Hillary’s plan “socialized medicene”.
Hillary’s plan is 180 degrees from socialized medicene and the Democrats’ argument for not proposing or supporting a single-payer system has been that the Republicans would accuse them of advocating socialized medicene. Romney’s comments confirm that the Republicans will shout “SOCIALIZED MEDICENE” whenever the Democrats mention health care, irrespective of the plan or context.
The only excuse the Democrats now have for not advocating a single payer system is that their campaign contributions come from the “health care” industry.
Universal Healthcare
It’s free for everyone.
Last year Senator Clinton received the most donations from the Health industry after the now defeated Senator Rick “Man-on-Dog” Santorum. Her loyalty is to them while she gives lipservice to healthcare reform.
Let’s get the profit motive OUT of Healing and Healthcare.
NOTE to fedupwithpolitics (11 AM) — Not all women are hoodwinked by Hillary. After NOW-PAC endorsed Senator Clinton for president, I did not renew my NOW membership. As a peace and justice activist in NYC, I am underwhelmed by her lack of responsiveness to her constituents. We don’t need that in another president.
America would be better off with a European Socialized Health Care Plan, but I guess everyone would prefer to continue with the inferior.
48 million Americans would have to buy coverage or be fined? A wet dream for the health insurance industry to be sure, but how would the government enforce such a plan when 99.9% of those 48 million haven’t got two nickels to rub together?
As a follow-up, has Michael Moore weighed in yet on what a fraud Hillary’s latest spin is?
Everyone who buys mandatory car insurance knows how that works out; you don’t use it; you just pay for it; if you ever use it, they raise your next premiums and get back whatever they gave you and then some. I don’t know quite what mechanism health insurers will use, but I have a feeling they’ve got one ready.
“Clinton’s plan is something that can be implemented quickly without havingto set up new agencies.”
Another one of the hollow rationale.
Didn’t seem to be a problem to set up a dept of homeland security–maybe we should healthcare under that.
And what about job creation? Certainly that is the argument that works for tax cuts.
I see an over-the-top pitch on Hillary’s latest sell-out, presenting it as the centerpiece rallying call like a runaway train. Sort of like how they sold Iraq.
Women of the democratic party please wake up and realize that Hillary Clinton promotes your enemies interests only. Please see beyond gender. No wonder Murdoch is giving her money.
Of course, if such a plan was introduced, employers everywhere would use it as an excuse to drop their health insurance benefits altogether - telling the workers that they are on their own now. It will now be up to them to buy the mandatory insurance at $1500 a month, to be partly compensated by a small once-a-year tax credit.
Such a plan would constitute the biggest mass pay-cut to US workers in history and be a stupendous victory for the neoliberal capitaliust project.
Better a republican fascist who will at least finally goad the us people to rise up than this vile woman.
Great idea…force the poor to hand over what little money they have left to the already grossly bloated Med Insurance Companies.
they may not be able to eat or afford shelter, but by god, they will have shitty healthcare!!!
What would work is what already works - Medicare for all. We’ve been doing Medicare for 40 years; we know how to do it; the bureaucracy is in place. All we have to do is extend it to everyone. There’s a House Bill to do this. All they have to do is vote for it. Medicare is popular with those who receive it. Why not make it available to everyone? If we were all as happy with the healthcare system as Medicare recipients are, we’d be in pretty good shape.
Thank god somebody else said it, and not me, and on a progressive site even: Hillary’s idea is insane. As some commenters have pointed out, it’s just another gravy train – think Medicare drug benefit – for piggish corporations. I wouldn’t be surprised if her proposal was actually crafted by the medical insurance industry!
As I understand it, her proposal is far worse than socialism. Her proposal would require each and every American to buy health insurance whether they want it or not, like automobile insurance. (It would be an interesting study to see if mandatory automobile insurance has been a net plus or not. I think it has not.) I don’t want to pay premiums to some greedy, insincere, disinterested health insurance company, only to have them try to wriggle out of paying my legitimate medical bills. I do not have health insurance now, and I’m perfectly happy that way. If I need medical care I will look around for the cheapest provider and pay out of pocket, even if that means traveling to India, Thailand, or even Mexico for care.
I can tell you this: I her proposal is enacted I will absolutely refuse to participate. This is one thing that would definitely cause me to flee this country.
Dave Eriqat
“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 call girl doesn’t want to ‘extract herself’ from the grip of the clients who pay her bills.
“Thank god somebody else said it, and not me, and on a progressive site even: Hillary’s idea is insane.”
She is not now, nor has she ever been, progressive or a friend of progressives. She’s received the blessing of Rupert Murdoch, but the Dead Dog Democrats continue to applaud her.
“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.”
The United States of Amnesia, as Gore Vidal calls us.
Clinton’s Healthcare Plan is yet ANOTHER reason NOT to support her candidacy.
Joe T’s comment at 12:54 is a good one:
“48 million Americans would have to buy coverage or be fined? A wet dream for the health insurance industry to be sure, but how would the government enforce such a plan when 99.9% of those 48 million haven’t got two nickels to rub together?”
Maybe they’ll start imprisoning those those who resist paying for healthcare. After all the only thing the US is #1 in anymore besides War is PRISONS. Hey, at least in prison they might get healthcare….
One main problem I see is that Universal Health care would largely eliminate a huge and profitable industry with loads of employees. Granted, they’re not health professionals but paper shufflers but we’re talking large numbers that would simply go poof. For a politician, even one hypothetically free of the shackles from industry donations, that’s a difficult game. Similar to closing military bases or weapons factories. It’s not simply about cutting out CEOs who make a killing but about the labor pool they created.
That said, I so wish we had French, British or Canadian solutions.
This is an amazing reaction, unexpected, that so many people can see through what Clinton is doing.
In my mind, this is not a “woman” issue, either. Some well-known female bloggers out there are supporting her, even though the Clinton plan works against them.
God help us. The United States is mucked down in a quagmire of representatives who are corrupt, stale, self-serving, and who have lost interest in the little people out here. We have no voice.
Next year, if I choose not to work for a corporation, I will not be able to get an affordable health plan. I’m really scared about this, as I’m at the age where I’m too young for Medicare and too old to be putting up with corporate spin anymore.
Those of us between 50 and 65 seem to be the ones targeted for this new age of thievery, a system designed to bankrupt us and take away that quaint thing called “pursuit of happiness”.
We can all thank the INSURANCE COMPANIES for this. They set out to seize ownership of a money pig, and they got it.
Universal Healthcare - not health insurance.
Universal Healthcare - it’s not free but we only need to pay for it once through our taxes. How does Cuba do it?
Quark, yes, eliminating insurance companies would put thousands out of work.
However, consider this: There are at least 47 million people without a healthcare system, and there are many millions more who are under-insured.
You have to ask yourself, in the event of life and death choices, what is more important: No medical treatment and letting a person die, or putting somebody out of a job (who could very easily go into another field of employment)?
Insurance companies are the enemies.
What else did you expect a republican to do? She is an A-Number-1 corporate whore. Always was and always will be! End of story.
How about all the people losing jobs in the mortgage, real estate, construction and banking sectors? How about off-shored jobs?
Notice that only in this case is the jobs angle promoted as valid.
We have “government run” or “socialized” police, armed forces, fire departments, k-12 schools, Medicare, and Social Security.
Why not government or socialized health care?
As a former Londoner, I can vouch for the fact that the British National Health Service has a flaw or two. But one cannot deny the fact that everyone in that country can see a doctor when they need to. And there is private health care in Britain, and some private health insurance as well. Give everyone a basic amount (but let’s not be too stingy), and if others want to put the bells and whistles on theirs, let em.
Does the US healthcare system exist to make people rich or to make them well? Never mind — it’s a stupid question.
vinlander: “Does the US healthcare system exist to make people rich or to make them well? Never mind — it’s a stupid question.”
The US system is now controlled by insurance companies, which I said above (by law) are supposed to make a profit as corporations. Nothing is more important to them than profit.
US insurance companies stepped between individuals and their doctors; we now have to clear major coverage with a paper-pusher on the phone at an insurance company. If they say no to a procedure, their response trumps the advice of a doctor.
Hillary is a dangerous “sell-out” to the insurance industry. She must have spent as little time really studying the situation as she did voting for war. Doesn’t the simple minded bitch know that a “single payer” plan would save enough to cover every man, woman and child?
This is precisely why I cannot vote for Mrs. Clinton, even if she becomes the Democratic Nominee, even despite the loathsome alternative of allowing a Republican to be elected.
She is attached at the hip to Corporate Interests, and her actions, taken as a whole, are as Republican as John Boehner or Arlen Specter.
Until someone proposes a system that eliminates corporate-run “Health Insurance,” we will not be “reforming” anything — but merely creating more cash cows for companies like Cigna, Blue Cross, and Kaiser.
America must face the fact that the “magic market” has bled us dry in the field of healthcare(to name only one). We have a previous episode of Clinton-care; we don’t need another. What we DO need to do is face the fact that the market has failed us and take measures to correct that. Health insurance must be taken from the privateers and buccaneers who now own it.
The healthcare corporations must be broken up. Anything less than this will
amount to a bandaid on a severed limb.
I too am excited by the numbers of people responding to this article who see the “Hillarycare” proposal for what it is - a complete sell-out to the health insurance industry. I have already launched my little tirade to Hillary’s website, and hope at least someone there will put a check in the “pissed off about our healthcare plan” column. I hope everyone else will do the same.
I too see the solution as an expansion of our national Medicare program. Medicare would provide basic coverage, as it does now, and the health insurance industry could still sell “Medigap” and other forms of coverage to those that want them (this would at least help solve the problem of the thousands of health insurance company employees who might lose thier jobs mentioned by several commentors). Medicare is 15 times as efficient as commercial health insurance programs, would save a ton of money, and wouldn’t require any new bureaucracy. The only two problems I can see with this idea (and maybe there are others) is first, that insurance companies would have an interest in keeping Medicare coverage so basic and the benefits paid so low that it wouldn’t really be worth much. We would need to make sure that it really did provide significant coverage that would protect its reciprients in the event of serious and catastrophic problems. Second, we need to find a way to solve the problem experienced by some national health care plans of delaying treatment for all but acute medical problems unless you have private insurance.
I recently spent some time in Australia. Australians generally like thier national health care program, but many, perhaps most, purchase private insurance so that they can get care when they want it, rather than having to wait. I am not sure how the private insurance merges with the national insurance to pay the bills, but it does. The upside is that the cost of private health insurance Australians buy is a fraction of what we pay in this country. The Australians I talked to were appalled when I told them I paid almost $12,000/yr. USD for high-deductable insurance for me and my wife that seldom pays anything in the way of benefits to us. We only pay it so that we will be protected if we have a medical catastrophe. Its nuts!
It seems to me that if I were unable to pay for any insurance, I would much rather have coverage that would care for me eventually if treatment could wait. If I had enough money, and it was important to me, I would much rather pay a much smaller premium for private insurance that would allow me to get immediate treatment for less serious problems rather than the huge premiums I pay now, generally for nothing. If I were a responsible employer, it would seem to me that I would rather pay a small tax to provide health care for my employees that I know my competitors have to pay too rather than a huge payment for private insurance which puts me at a competitive disadvantage with those employers that don’t. If I were a health are provider, it seems to me that I would rather know I will be paid by a national health care program benefit, even if it is less than I would like to charge, than to have to worry about not being paid at all. All of the doctors I know are in favor of a national health care plan, although they would like to know that the benefits paid would be enough for them to earn a reasonable profit. It just makes sense. Health care providers would be able to devote a lot less resources to billing and collection issues.
I had serious doubts if Hillary was electable anyway before this new debacle. I now know I will not vote for her under any circumstances. She is simply more of the same, establishment Washington, a slave to her corporate masters, and will not fight for the values we all cherish.
I have a simple test for evaluating anyone’s health care plan: If you have a serious illness (say cancer), are unable to work, and therefore don’t have the money to pay health insurance premiums, are your medical expenses covered?
I really don’t understand why people can’t grasp the simple fact that if you’re seriously ill then you can’t work and don’t have the money to pay for health care, whether from a government sponsored plan or private care. It seems pretty obvious to me, but maybe I’m missing something.
Hillary and Edwards both are eager to fill the corporate coffers of Big Pharma and the healthcare industry.
Both of them seem to be embracing “individual mandate” a la Romney.
So now the government is going to demand (mandate) that I buy insurance? At my income level, I couldn’t afford health insurance if the government gave me a 100% income tax credit.
Guess we now have our own DINO’s (dems in name only). Individual mandate smacks not of socialism, but fascism.
If business would think this through, I belive they would embrace universal, single-payer health care. Then every business would have a level playing field regarding health care costs.
Quite literally, in all of the world, the US is probably the only country where a politician could deride a health care plan as “European-style socialized medicine.”
As though that were a bad thing. Up is down, black is white (unless of course it’s your skin color, in which case, white is still definitely white)
argghhh
What I don’t understand is why anyone who isn’t a insurance company executive would even think of voting Democrat. The party obviously doesn’t give a damn about anyone else.
Mandated coverage is not “health care reform” - unless, of course, you’re an insurance company or someone who only accepts insurance as payment. There’s a ton of profiteering in health care and while the worst of it easily rides with insurance companies, doctors and hospitals aren’t exempt. Wandering slightly off topic, I’m still absolutely beyond befuddlement trying to figure out what on earth ANY doctor of any specialty could do in a 10 minute basic office visit that would be worth a negotiated rate of $380 or how badly a business would need to be hemorrhaging money for that amount per patient to “not be enough to stay in business” - and that’s even taking into consideration the costs of med school and allowing the right their rot about “rampant malpractice abuse”.
But seriously, why are the Democrats now - any of them - peddling variations of the same rot (mandated health insurance coverage) that the Republicans have been trying to push? Either keep your noses out - which would mean you’re either unable or unwilling to do what’s necessary for real reform - or do some real reform. Telling everybody to buy insurance isn’t going to help much even if you “make” or “require” all companies to accept applications from everyone, limit premiums, limit premium increases, limit copays AND even limit profits. It’s time to face the fact that beyond a select and very lucky few, the current system is too broken for mere repairs or reforms.
Personally, I don’t care if it’s “European-style socialized medicine” as long as it doesn’t sit back not caring that people are facing consequences like death, disability and/or bankruptcy while proclaiming even the most basic care to be a priviledge and that all matters concerning access to care are “purely individual/personal responsibility” without the slightest bit of concern about how absurd that claim is when basic care can easily run well into the tens of thousands if you require testing, surgery or maintenance meds for multiple conditions.
The jobs issue is a red herring. First of all, the logic is cockeyed; it’s like saying we don’t dare release this cure for cancer because the undertakers and gravediggers will go begging. Time to rediscover what Compassionate State safety nets were for!
Also, sad to say, I discount the idea that politicians are risking real political capital and grass-roots popularity by sponsoring a health care plan that might cause mass extinction of insurance corporation grunts. I think mass extinction of manufacturing sector employees and the effects of NAFTA on labor markets have so effectively undermined the employee class from bottom to middle that individual politicians are no longer held accountable for job loss.
Politicians will always sponsor, or otherwise take credit for, projects that bring jobs to their district. So jobs have political weight on the positive side. But I can’t say that during the upheavals of corporate downsizing, the S&L hi-jinks, outsourcing, etc., that the stunned populace really holds their elected representatives’ feet to the fire.
I’m sure that preserving insurance company jobs will still be advanced as a devious and disingenuous faux-compassionate pretext for maintaining the corporate stranglehold, though.
I’ve posted enough times on this thread, but…
Most of you people ROCK!
No one is mentioning Kucinich’s plan…?!
Who’s Kucinich? He’s not even in the ballgame. And socialized medicine is NEVER going to fly in this country, so forget about it.
I see lots of whining and griping here but no substantive suggestions. Face it, everyone is going to be equally unhappy with any health care reform plan. Clinton is trying to get more people covered and keep the insurance companies happy too. We need a CHANGE in health care (among many other things) in this country and Clinton has the saavy to come up with something.
Give Clinton a chance. Would you rather have 8 more years of affordable health for the rich and famous only?
I like the part about making it “illegal” to NOT have health insurance, which is another way of saying it would be illegal not to give a portion of your salary to the giant HMO of your choice. What? Can I pay cash? Will I be jailed after I get better or before? Will they have to build hospital/jails for the illegally sick?
Here’s an alternative plan: gov coverage for all, a return to normal salaries for doctors, hospital execs, etc, and a campaign to convince those who can afford their own insurance to do so, thereby easing the gov’s responsibility. To all those who’ve been profiteering on the backs of American workers, you’ve had a nice run, now take your billions and get lost - we got a country to rescue.
Folks,Before we all get lost in ideological battles,just to remind you that the first modern UNIVERSAL Health Care system came about in Germany in 1886 by Otto Von Bismarck and it is still running. I do not remember Bismarck as a model socialist. France and Britain chosing a partly paid and Fabian Socialist model respectively. Japan much later ditto Singapore. Canada only in 1970 and we copied the British model (very socialistic )with now long wait times after 35 years of a lot of political incompetence.
What I like about the Bismarck plan was it’s practicality and it comes at 10.9 % of GDP and covers everyone with minimal wait times. In contrast the US is over 17.9% of GDP and does not fully cover mora than 40% of population.(Canada at 10% is cheaper and slighltly more efficientthan USA).
Now why is it we cannot even look to Germany,Japan,France and Singapore. Would it hurt our collective egos to find good solutions elsewhere.??
Don’t be confused by “Universal Healthcare”. It’s a sham. Forcus on “Single Payor” or “Medicare for All”
Here are some resources:
Single Payor Healthcare: Marilyn Clement, National Coordinator, Healthcare-NOW, 339 Lafayette St, NYC 10012,
info@healthcare-now.org
Toll free: 1-800-453-1305
www.healthcare-now.org
1. Check to be sure your member of Congress is an endorser of H.R. 676. Look on our website, read the bill and check the co-sponsors – 77 as of Sept. 10.
http://www.healthcarenow.org/resources/hr676.htm#cosponsors
Call your Congress Member if he/she is not on the list. Call on Chairman Rangel and Speaker Pelosi to hold hearings on H.R. 676 now. FREE CALLS TO CONGRESS 1-866-340-9281 or 1-800-828-0498
Medicare for all is not just the promise of “pursuit of happiness”. It’s a matter of life and death for far too many Americans.
Thanks for all you do!
I, for one, am currently w/o health care, but won’t buy compulsory insurance that Hillary plans. All it would do is fatten the insurance companies, who already own the world’s tallest buildings. Thanks but NO THANKS!
P.S. Most everyone here is truely “on it” and sees the fault with this whole universal insurance plan. But, I would please ask you not to make this a womens’ issue by calling Clinton a “whore”, “bitch” or any of the other sexist terms I read. Clinton’s plan is rotten, but not because she is female. It’s rotten because she is a triangulating politician that will tell you any lie to get elected and line her pockets with corporate cash and power. She’s no different than all the rest of the Dimms/Repugs that buy into the whole mess in DC.
Only dim-witted males would assume that all females support Hillary. I detest Hilary. I will not vote for her, no matter who else is running. But I wish the moron males who posted comments in this thread simplistically blaming women for Hillary’s rise (men in NY state voted for her, you moronic dickheads)would cease their mindless, bigoted statements about Hilary’s gender and/or her putative female supporters. I am sorry to speak denigratingly of your moronic males but I am doing it to give you a taste of what it is like to listen to your moronic degradation of females. And cut out the bullshit of calling Hillary a whore or a bitch . . . . it is outrageous, sexist bigotry. Do you refer to Mitt Romney as a limpdick? Do you suggest that Giuliani is compensating for his tiny little pecker? If you are going to use gutter talk to talk about a brilliant, Yale law grad with experience in the U.S. Senate just because she is female, well, ‘f off, all you limpdick bozos. How do you like that language guys?
The old adage, “Follow the money”, is as applicable today as ever.
A single payor healthcare plan is not socialized medicine. It is simply a more efficient insurance program. Admnistrative costs per medicare claim are approximately 3 cents per dollar whereas private insurance plans cost from 14 to 30 cents per dollar. Medical practices are small businesses. When they have to hire administrators to decipher the ins and outs of a myriad of healthcare/HMO plans that is money that does not go for the prevention/treatment of illness. Medicare does not dictate the choice of physicians or hospitals. It simply pays a percentage of the amount billed. Medicare for all is one model for universal coverage. The VA is a more traditional socialized medicine model and it works if the vets can get access to a medical facility. Any plan based on the current model that gives insurance companies/HOMs a stranglehold on healthcare coverage is simply unacceptable.
Hillary’s plan is not that different from Obama’s or Edwards’ so please stop with the misogynist attacks on Clinton. All of these plans are better than nothing, but they will not solve the problem of insurance costs. We already spend more on healthcare than countries with so-called socialized medicine. Getting administrative costs down would free up billions o dollars for care.
Another pandering position to placate the semi conscious wing of the Democratic Party.
I guess one could be easily fooled by the term “Universal” healthcare coverage for all Americans.
In reality it is business as unusual except this time we raid the US treasury to cover the uninsured and give a large windfall profit to the insurance companies, the pharmaceutical industry and the medical profession, Hillarys biggest contributors.
Her proposal will only put more money in the hands of third party for-profit insurance companies and when there is a profit motive involved you can be sure that good health care will suffer and prices will soar.
Because for-profit companies are beholden to their stock holders and the bottom line and could care less about the patient.
We must finally join the rest of the industrialized world and not settle for anything less than single payer Medicare for all Americans not just senior citizens only.
We already have the bureaucracy to handle Medicare for everyone already established and it has worked very efficiently for decades, it only needs to be expanded.
Taking the unethical profit out of healthcare is the only way to approach this problem.
When we the people collectively decide that we want a healthcare plan to cover all of us, this will be considered socialized medicine by the right wing but then you would also have to refer to our military as a socialized defense system. In essence it is just a smart way to efficiently cover the entire country.
I know it seems like a hopeless cause at the moment but the only candidate in the race right now who makes any sense regarding healthcare and ending the war in Iraq is; DENNIS KUCINICH.
longingforsanity: good comparison on the car insurance- but I don’t own a car, and don’t plan on getting one, but I would like to be able to go to the hospital if I need to. Of course, there are people in more spread out areas that “need” a car- or a strong local govt public transportation initiative.
And I don’t buy the “women support Hillary”- I’ve met 1 who does, and I’m slowly changing her mind. (I don’t care who is pres, just what they will do)
PJD & whatfools: Universal Single-Payer Health Insurance (otherwise know as Medicare-For-All, or the plan your congressmen gets)
-We all need insurance
-For things we all need, implement social program (Medicare)through taxes
-Medicare costs a whole hell of a lot less then my insurance
-Reduce profit and increase savings
-You’ve just eliminated the major expense problem with small businesses- maybe the’ll stay in business or give you a raise
-Go to your boss and say “my taxes went up 2%, and your cost of paying me went down 15%, so I demand a 5% raise” (yes I made those numbers up)
What ever loss in insurance jobs will be offset by increased employment in small business.
Commonreader: [We have “government run” or “socialized” police, armed forces, fire departments, k-12 schools, Medicare, and Social Security.
Why not government or socialized health care?]
School vouchers, Blackwater & KBR, private security gaurds, Hillarycare, and personal savings accounts.
Find the things that everyone needs for ever, then tell them that it’s better if they pay extra for a 3rd party to do it.
Rebel Farmer: RIGHT ON!
SAY NO TO UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE!!!
(and yes to universal single-payer insurance)
The problem in canada & elswhere with universal healthcare is that it’s too much of a govt program… you have to wait too long for care.
Medicare-For-All would keep the for-profit medical providers, just making it cheaper. Then those providers (docs & hospitals) can compete in the free-market based on SERVICE, not insurance scams.
YEAH KUCINICH!! YEAH H.R. 676!!!
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d110:29:./temp/~bdSmAG::|/bss/d110query.html|
Many, if not most of us, are one catastrophic illness or injury away from bankruptcy, even if we HAVE private, employer provided insurance. Hillary’s proposition would damn me to forever being stuck with my high co-pay, high deductible health insurance provided by my employer. I’m so deep in debt right now to medical bills (by the way, THE NUMBER ONE cause of bankruptcies in this country!) that I wonder when the day will come when I will be free of this albatross of debt around my neck.
As our population ages, we who are growing older are going to need increased access to health care, but as my generation (Baby Boomers) is retiring right now, we will face even greater catastrophe as we struggle to pay our increasing health care bills. We will bankrupt both our generation and GenX right behind us trying to take care of ourselves. GenY will also pay dearly for it. No one will be safe.
Hillary’s proposal is just what I expected from her - to lily-livered to come out and endorse universal health care and instead keep the private insurers in the mix, reaping record profits at our expense. She may be a woman but I sure as hell won’t vote for her. She’s cheek-by-jowl with the Corporations and beholden to them too deeply to demand universal health care like Dennis Kucinich has so courageously done. But no one takes Rep. Kucinich (D-OH) seriously anyway, despite the fact that he probably has the best platform of any of the Democratic candidates, so….once again, he is already laughed at as an “also ran” who doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of winning.
So I can’t say I feel particularly optimistic at this point that anything is going to change in this health care crisis that we are already mired in. Big Pharma, Big Insurance and Big Medical are too rich, too powerful and in too deep with all the major front runner candidates and we don’t stand a chance of changing anything until The People regain control of things from Big Corporate. And that isn’t going to happen anytime soon, believe me. If people had really wanted it to happen, it would have by now, but people are too apathetic and bovine, too wrapped up in their home theatre systems, 200 channel satellite TV’s and reality shows to get up off their couches and their collective obese butts and take real action.
JOHN KERRY vs. JOHN F. KENNDEY answering questions at open forum:
Go to youtube and watch this video of JFK to see how he handles a difficult question from a hostile reporter:
The Video can be found at youtube under this title:
John F. Kennedy 1960 WV Primary
The URL for the video is as follows:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJyb9R_TL8M
Watch the whole video and you will see the difference between the Democratic Party represented by Kennedy, and what it has become today.
Kennedy wouldn’t have missed his chance to answer the young student, Andrew Meyer, at the public forum. He would have made sure that the student got his chance to speak, and he would have had a brilliant, accurate and heartfelt response to give the world. Beyond that his words would have been more than just words, but indicators of his real positions and future policies.
Today’s democratic candidates and politicians don’t represent anything worth voting for.
FOOL ME ONCE SHAME ON YOU. FOOL ME TWICE SHAME ON ME.
Rebel Farmer: Ditto to everything you’ve said.
It’s worrisome that these politicians are so far off-base, so far from reality of the needs of people, the state of the country in relation to modern European powers, etc. Time and again, example after example, they can’t create an honest program for people if they tried. All must be a means for a giant contractor to skim off huge profits. Nothing can be for the public good. Everything must contain an extraordinarilly connected middle-man. You’ve got regulatory neglect and fiscal mismanagement on the “right”, and forced programs for well-connected vendors on what passes for the “left”. Fact of the matter is that both are “up” on the spectrum: the politics of high power brokering, at the expense of the many downwind.
I wonder how long they can keep this game up.
Sorry, this is a little long, but it is such an incredible article, I had to include it to make my point.
These sluts, the Clintons, are more republican than most repubs. The despicable PIG Bill Clinton did more to sell out the poor and labor than anyone before or since, including this present piece of shit,idiot, Dubya. Hillary and slick willy are one and the same.
Published on Monday, September 17, 2007 by TruthDig.com
‘Giving’ and Taking
by Chris Hedges
Bill Clinton has written a new book. It is called “Giving & Taking: How Each of Us Can Change the World.” He will give a portion of the proceeds to charity. Giving, the former president informs us, gives us fulfilment in life and is “the fabric of our shared humanity.”
His book is the political equivalent of “Marley & Me” It is filled with a lot of vapid, feel-good stories about ordinary and wealthy Americans setting out to make the world a better place. It smacks of the philanthropy-as-publicity that characterized the largesse of the robber barons — the Mellons and the Rockefellers — and has become a pastime for our own oligarchic elite. Clinton’s call for charity is the equivalent of well-scrubbed prep school students spending a day in a soup kitchen, doling out food to the people whose jobs were outsourced by their mommies and daddies. It does little to alleviate suffering. But it is a balm to the conscience of the oligarchic class that profits handsomely from the impoverishment of the working class, globalization and our anti-democratic corporate state. The rich love to dine out on their own goodness.
The misery sweeping across the American landscape may have begun with Ronald Reagan, but it was accelerated and codified by Bill Clinton. He sold out the poor and the working class. And Clinton did it deliberately to feed the pathological hunger he and his wife have for political power. It was the Clintons who led the Democratic Party to the corporate watering trough. The Clintons argued that the party had to ditch labor unions, no longer a source of votes or power, as a political ally. Workers would vote Democratic anyway. They had no choice. It was better, the Clintons argued, to take corporate money and use government to service the needs of the corporations. By the 1990s, the Democratic Party, under Clinton’s leadership, had virtual fund-raising parity with the Republicans. In political terms, it was a success. In moral terms, it was a betrayal.
The North American Free Trade Agreement was sold to the country by the Clinton White House as an opportunity to raise the incomes and prosperity of the citizens of the United States, Canada and Mexico. Goods would be cheaper. Workers would be wealthier. Everyone would be happier. I am not sure how these contradictory things were supposed to happen, but in a sound-bite society, reality no longer matters. NAFTA would also, we were told, staunch Mexican immigration into the United States.
“There will be less illegal immigration because more Mexicans will be able to support their children by staying home,” President Clinton said in the spring of 1993 as he was lobbying for the bill.
But NAFTA, which took effect in 1994, had the curious effect of reversing every one of Clinton’s rosy predictions. Once the Mexican government lifted price supports on corn and beans for Mexican farmers, they had to compete against the huge agribusinesses in the United States. The Mexican farmers were swiftly bankrupted. At least 2 million Mexican farmers were driven off their land from 1993 through 2002. And guess where many of them went? This desperate flight of Mexicans into the United States is being exacerbated by large-scale factory closures along the border as manufacturers leave Mexico for the cut-rate embrace of China’s totalitarian capitalism.
Clinton’s welfare reform bill, which was signed on Aug. 22, 1996, obliterated the nation’s social safety net. It threw 6 million people, many of them single parents, off of the welfare rolls within three years. It dumped them onto the streets without child care, rent subsidies and continued Medicaid coverage. Families were plunged into crisis, struggling to survive on multiple jobs that paid $6 or $7 an hour, or less than $15,000 a year. But these were the lucky ones. In some states, half of those dropped from the welfare rolls could not find work. Clinton slashed Medicare by $115 billion over a five-year period and cut $25 billion in Medicaid funding. The booming and overcrowded prison system handled the influx of the poor, as well as our abandoned mentally ill.
The growing desperation provided a pool of broken people willing to work for low wages and without unions or benefits. And while Clinton was busy selling out the poor, he lowered the capital gains tax from 28 percent to 20 percent, a reduction that permitted the wealthiest 1 percent of the population to derive 80 percent of the tax savings. Clinton, like George W. Bush, also provided lavish government funding for his corporate backers, including in 1998 a $200-billion highway and transportation package for the big construction companies and a $17-billion increase in the military budget. This was the largest increase in military spending since the end of the Cold War. Corporations, flush with government aid, saw their taxes dwindle. Amway, for example, had its taxes cut during the Clinton years by an estimated $280 million. The Clinton and Bush administrations, through tax breaks and corporate bailouts, have squandered billions of our tax dollars on corporate welfare.
The appreciative oligarchs and corporate class have made Bill rich. He is fond of boasting in public about how wealthy he has become. Hillary raised $26 million in the first quarter of the year, almost three times as much as any politician previously raised at that point in a presidential election.
We face the prospect of having two families govern the country for 16 years. The system is rigged. Our democracy is a consumer fraud. The government has given up any pretense of serving the interests of citizens. The corporations rule. And for all Clinton’s charm and talent for self-promotion, he is largely to blame.
Half a century ago, corporations paid 45 percent to 50 percent of the income tax. Today they pay 6 or 7 percent. This is why our infrastructure is crumbling, there is no universal health care, our public education is in crisis, regulatory agencies are impotent and our poor and working class are desperate.
The bottom line is that the Democrats, including John Edwards, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, will never govern on our behalf. They are hostage to those who put them in power. And it is not us. Until we throw our weight behind fringe candidates such as Dennis Kucinich or Ralph Nader, if he runs, we will continue to be fleeced by corporate pawns such as the Clintons and the Bushes. It is no longer possible to argue between the lesser of two evils. The corporate state, which is carrying out a coup d’etat in slow motion and has already shredded most of our constitutional rights, is an unmitigated evil. We do not need charity. We need justice. And all of Bill Clinton’s heart-warming stories about giving are not going to save us from the corporations who sucked out his soul and seek to imprison the rest of us.
I’ve wondered a bit lately about the supposedly wonderful Clinton years. Perhaps he enjoyed a unique time in history — the boom of the internet. I believe his was the first administration to even have a web site.
Burst bubbles aside, the internet beyond any doubt has created a positive impact on our economy. If Clinton had been elected 10 years earlier — or later — just how fondly WOULD Greenspan be thinking of those good ol’ Clinton days?
Indeed, if the nation takes another 8 years under the Clintonian Dynasty, will it be back to the glory days of the 90’s? Or not?
Who are these idiots who support Hillary Clinton. Personally I’ve never NEVER met anyone who likes her or her policies and yet she’s leading in the polls? A lot of people like to quip that Bill Clinton was the best president the republicans ever had but I think Hillary will surpass him him at that. It’s obvious the elite oligarchy has already appointed her as our next president. Now we’ll just have to sit and wait for her coronation…
Believe half of what you see and none of what you hear.
DO NOT BELIEVE POLLS AND “FRONTRUNNERS”
DON’T DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(you think Bush is really at 30%? Who beside pundits do you see supporting him?)