Sen. Clinton's Health Plan: A First Look
Sen. Hillary Clinton has offered an initial look at her plan for health care reform. It's not likely to change anyone's mind about her candidacy, or about health care reform, but at the overview level it's well-designed and thorough. Her plan is solidly in the center of Democratic proposals. It emphasizes mandated coverage, cost reduction measures, and the elimination of predatory insurance underwriting. At first review, it reinforces the sense that she and her staff are knowledgeable, highly competent, and incrementalist in their approach.
We'll look at the plan's details, and then quickly touch on the Republicans' (predictable) responses.
Sen. Clinton has abandoned the regional health alliances that were a hallmark of her 1994 proposal. That makes the Edwards plan, with its regionally-based Health Markets, more traditionally 'Clintonian' than Sen. Clinton's new proposal.
Here are the highlights of the Clinton plan, based on an initial review:
Like the Edwards plan and Mitt Romney's Massachusetts plan, mandates are the centerpiece of the Clinton program. Every American will be required to have health insurance. To offset this new requirement, the Clinton plan promises future cost savings to ensure affordability.
I'm not a fan of mandates, for reasons discussed here, although I understand the thought process behind them. There are fundamental issues of fairness that are easy to address in theory, using subsidies -- but most policymakers so far have failed handle premium and copayment structures in a way that does so effectively. I also suspect that Republicans will have a field day running against the mandate concept.
The Clinton plan -- like those of Edwards and Obama -- apparently offers a public insurance alternative, although details are sketchy at this point. The long-term impact of a public/private competitive model is potentially very significant: If private insurance companies can't compete on price and value, and if they're policed effectively enough to avoid their use of unfair underwriting advantages, they could potentially wither and die. That would leave the country with a de facto single-payer system -- one created by market forces. Yet there are many potential hurdles between a mixed system and a fair outcome.
Sen. Clinton's program is administered through the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program (FEHBP). She takes a page from John Kerry's playbook (and Ron Wyden's) by saying that this will provide "benefits at least as good as the typical plan offered to Members of Congress, which includes mental health parity and usually dental coverage." There will also apparently be also a public Medicare-like system, although details on that are sketchy at this point.
The problem is that, as Joe Paduda points out, many Americans can't afford the copayments and deductibles in the congressional health plan.
It will be difficult to light a fire under the political base with this plan, or for that matter with Edwards' or Obama's (although Edwards took the rhetorical lead today by promising to cancel coverage for the executive and legislative branches if health reform isn't enacted).
Sen. Clinton's plan appears to handle taxation issues in depth, and addresses the ongoing (and often neglected) issue of retiree health benefits. And Clinton has been ahead of the curve in addressing health IT issues.
Republican reaction was predictable:
"If you've seen the report this morning on the latest version of Hillarycare, you'll see that version 2.0 is not like to have any more success than 1.0," former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney told reporters in New York. "Hillarycare continues to be bad medicine."
Yet, of all the candidates, Romney is the only one who has tried to enact health reform. As we've discussed before (here, here, here, and here), his record so far hasn't earned him any bragging rights. And Giuliani indulges in a typical attack of red-baiting, saying ""If you liked Michael Moore's Sicko, you're going to love HillaryCare 2.0. " That may not be a smart move, since a lot of people did like Sicko (a movie that condemned the "new Hillary").
As with any of the health proposals, the Clinton plan can't be fully assessed until more details are provided on knotty issues like premium calculations and benefit design. We'll be looking for more information, and will provide more details as we get them.
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RJ Eskow at the Huffington Post
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The former First Lady and a United States Senator says she will introduce and sign legislation requiring insurance companies to:
disregard preexisting conditions,
require them to lose money on sick people,
mandate the purchase of health insurance,
force employers to offer health insurance,
and somehow, ratchet down the profitability of private companies.
61% of primary voting Democrats have confidence in Hillary's pitch. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/1 7/opinion/polls/main3269421.shtml?source =RSSattr=Politics_3269421
This is the same insurance industry, which managed to squeeze billions out of the Medicare Part D initiative. It is the same insurance industry, which is fined and penalized hundreds of millions of dollars for withholding payments to providers and fraud. And it is the same insurance industry, which withholds authorizations for treatments ... which it arbitrarily determines are 'not covered' or 'experimental'.
Perhaps, the next course in this fiction will be that the Iraqi Police Force will be empowered to protect the integrity of this new-found American healthcare system.
She knows and understands the legislative process. She has had first-hand experience ('and the scars to prove it') with unbridled greed in her healthcare fight of the 90s ... and plundered legislation (aka 'compromises') subsequently.
Her tenet requires ... 'the suspension of disbelief'. Nevertheless, her presentation was convincing ... which Democratic Presidential candidate has given voters cause to doubt her?
She said that people will have to pay extra if they want a more intense level of healthcare.
So, where does she suppose healthcare providers will cluster to solicit private pay patients? We already have a tiered healthcare non-system.
Hillary's plan offers more profit streams for the industry without fundamentally addressing the principal crises. But it sounds good to the uninformed and under-educated.
The public awaits full disclosure of core issues in the healthcare debate.
it's extremely unlikely that any "clinton health plan" would be enacted if she is elected. i say this based on history: as first lady she spoke out endlessly, and rightly so, against the bankruptcy bill. on her first senate election cycle the credit card companies poured money into her campaign and, sure enough, she went ahead and voted for "that awful bill."
do we want to bet our future on the leopard changing her spots? i sure don't.
Leaving health insurers in charge of our healthcare is like leaving the Ku Klux Klan in charge of Civil Rights. There are two ways they make money: overcharging healthy people as much as possible, and denying sick ones care as often as possible. Their goal is to make as much money as they can get away with, and they've gotten away with billions of our healthcare dollars already that coulda, woulda, shoulda been used to provide desperately needed care to millions. Plus they are killing at least six nine-elevens worth of innocent Americans they have rationed to Ground Zero every year. Al Qaeda is praying for such success. If you think private health insurance coverage is working for you, then you must be in the critical mass who is either: A.healthy; B. wealthy; or C. covered in a large group or government plan that pays for most of what you get AND have no idea who is paying how much for what. Profit-driven health insurance is counting on you, and politicians who have sold out the Good of the Whole for the Welfare of the Few (that would be most but not all politicians on both sides of the fence). Americans voting for politicians who support the continuation of this broken status quo are (to paraphrase a great comedian) "like chickens voting for Colonel Sanders".
Does it bother you that Rupert Murdoch supports Hillary Clinton?
Does it bother you that Hillary Clinton takes money from the health insurance companies and Big Pharma ?
And now she trots out her "health care plan"
She is the REAL republican candidate.
I just wish that one of the "top tier" candidates would follow my favorite candidate Dennis Kucinich's lead and promote a simple universal SINGLE-PAYOR plan. I think we should reclaim the phrase "socialized medicine" as a good not an evil. It certainly works in other countries, considering our plumeting comparative life expectancy rates.
HillaryCare! I love it. To the Clinton team: please adopt this slogan as your own "queer"!! Who doesn't like the idea of being taken care of?
Never mind the positive effect of shutting up the supposedly clever critics, if you say "HillaryCare" enough times, it really does start to sound like a thing worth having. :)
Congress's health plan has mental health coverage? Clearly, they're not using it!
I don't know where you got your figures from, but as I told you, my Mother was on medicare. She did not pay anything like you are talking about. I also know several Senior citizens who are very happy with their Medicare. Yes, some do buy medigap and some do not. It,s their choice depending on their situation. Yes I have checked with all the agencies about me. I have a small amount in the bank so cannot get any help. Some counties are offering plans but I am in a rural county and they do not. So I live day to day hoping I do not get sick and lose my house. My mother had the best of care and all I can say is thank God for medicare. Your figures are not correct. I don't know where you got them. I meant a 2% tax to pay for healthcare. Better yet, take the billions Bush is squandering in his war and pay for insurance for everyone. God knows, we deserve after putting up with that nitwit all these years.
I just want to say that even though I don't care for Senator Clinton's plan, this is a great thread. Thanks Mr. Eskow for providing details we can't get from the MSM "sound bites", and I learned a lot from the commenters too.
I hope the government can get this worked out,I lost my healthcare here in Tennessee a couple of years ago,my health has gotten worse due to my inablity to see a doctor or take all of my medications i was originally perscribed.Some have died due to GREED here in Tennessee:Google-"TennCare deaths",see for yourself.
Anyway,any politician(repug or democrap)that says that this is "socialism"or"communism" as a cop-out to dismiss this IMPORTANT issue.
They need to be reminded that THEY HAVE SOCIALIZED MEDICAL COVERAGE PAID FOR BY THE AMERICAN TAX PAYER,did you know that? The V.A. is also PAID FOR BY TAXPAYER DOLLARS.My dad is a disabled vet,I WOULD LOVE TO HAVE HIS COVERAGE!
So when they say we can't have "single payer" healthcare,tell them"give up yours first,comrade"...you fukn' hypocrite!
For most of my working life, I had employer supplied health insurance. As the cost of insurance skyrocketed, the coverage either got worse, I had to kick in, and then finally it just went away and I paid all expenses out of pocket.
Luckily it turns out, I was seriously injured in the Army and the VA gives me complete coverage.
As far as I"m concerned, it is without a doubt the best heal care I've ever had and if we shitcanned the insurance companies all Americans could have it.
To all the rightwing screwballs who squawk about "socialized medicine" and have health insurance provided by their employer, they already have "socialized medicine", they're just too damned stupid to understand it.
In my short 51 years on this rock, I have been extreme liberal in my misguided youth, morphed over to neo con for a short while, and now proudly registered independent. while I lean to the "right" I want this country returned to being the best as it once was. FDR started this liberal experiment, and it has gone down hill ever since, with all the "entitlement mentality" that the politicians from BOTH sides of the aisle. Personally I want to be able to choose what doctor I use, and which hospital I can go to, not some government moron making those decisions. if you want to see "hillary care" in real life, just google socialized medicine in britain or canada, heck if government health care was so great, that commie fidel castro would be back in the cuban public eye..... as far as hillary for president is concerned, she is a proven liar !!!! do any of you remember her "word" to New York, that all she wanted to do was to serve her complete senate term "fighting" for new yorkers,,and did NO ASPIRATIONS for president ??? If I was to vote democrat it would be for Joe Biden, on the rep side wow several GREAT choices there tancredo, hunter or paul.
I'd like to hear more details about her plan, but I did like ''Sicko,'' so if it is at least somewhat like those European countries' plans, I'm all for it.
It's not "at least somewhat like those European plans". Why are you so willing to settle for scraps from the table while the Europeans have it so much better? Aren't we supposed to be the fucking greatest country on earth?
I'm willing to settle because frankly I don't thing anything much will come of this. Not because Hillary and other candidates aren't sincere and wanting to do something, but because special interests and the insurance companies have a chokehold on this healthcare system and no candidate on earth is going to change that any time soon. It's too long to go into here, but my insurance company is making me pay for a ''pre-existing'' condition, which is they said, she said. I didn't know I had it, they say I did. The brutal fact is that I need them more than they need me. They know it and I know it. 'nuff said.
I am told the Kucinich plan would cost 70 billion per year and provide free health care for everyone.
Hillary is asking the middle class to pay $110 million in taxes PLUS the insurance companies taking a percentage of everyone's income
for a plan that will still let the insurance company deny you care. Why does Hillary need three times the money [$110 billion in taxes plus another $110 billion in premiums] to do less.
I have no health insurance now and can go to
the emergency room. That is better for me than
Hillary forcing me to pay a percentage of my income to some insurance company.
How can you write a blog about health care plans and not mention the only one that makes sense- Dennis Kucinich's plan for not for profit health care. As almost every other developed country has discovered this is the most sensible and comprehensive way to go.
Clinton has been bought and paid for by the insurance lobby and has delivered by proposing everybody pay for insurance and she calls that health care! But as usual Kucinich is ignored or ridiculed. No wonder we always end up with a "choice" of tweedledum or tweedledee.
If you have an hour to kill, and are willing to put in the effort to study the issue in depth (if an hour can be considered in depth) go here to read a very well written study on healthcare and the conclusions they come to in it. This report was done by the American Medical Student Association. It addresses each issue within our current health insurance situation and does a fine job of it, too. Part of the current debate for or against is that most people simply accept whatever the pundits discuss without ever really looking at it themselves to get to the truth of the matter. By putting in a little effort to educate ourselves about the issue, much can be learned and appreciated.
http://www.amsa.org/hp/hpsimple.cfm
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