Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton is unveiling a sweeping health care proposal Monday that would require everyone to carry health insurance and offer federal subsidies to help reduce the cost of coverage.

 

Fulfilling a pledge to bring health care to all, Clinton's "American Health Choices Plan" has a price tag of about $110 billion per year. It represents her first major effort to achieve universal health coverage since 1994, when the plan she authored during her husband's first term collapsed.

 

"It is long past time that Americans and the richest of all countries realize that health care is a right and not a privilege," Clinton said at a labor forum in Chicago. "And that goes especially for people who work hard every single day."

 

The former first lady says she has learned from the 1990s experience, which almost derailed Bill Clinton's presidency and helped put Republicans in control of Congress for years to come. Aides say she has jettisoned the complexity and uncertainty of the last effort in favor of a plan that stresses simplicity, cost control and consumer choice.

 

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.

 

Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, has already laid out proposals to improve health care quality and reduce costs. She was to release her universal health care plan in Iowa, the first voting state.

 

With 47 million Americans currently uninsured, the Democratic presidential contenders have been united in advocating universal coverage. They have parted ways on certain specifics, including the individual mandate, which has detractors from both ends of the political spectrum.

 

Republican skeptics say it would be too invasive and would restrict personal freedom and choice. Liberal Democrats have expressed concern that such a mandate would be too financially burdensome for lower-income individuals and families ? a concern shared by Obama, who has said individuals cannot be forced to purchase insurance until the cost of coverage is substantially reduced.

 

Aides said Clinton believes that an individual mandate is the only way to achieve health care for all. A key component of her plan would be a federal tax subsidy to help individuals pay for coverage.

 

Clinton's plan builds on the existing employer-based system of coverage. People who receive insurance through the workplace could continue to do so; businesses, in turn, would be required to offer insurance to employees, or contribute to a government-run pool that would help pay for those not covered. Clinton would also offer a tax subsidy to small businesses to help them afford the cost of providing coverage to their workers.

 

For individuals and families who are not covered by employers or whose employer-based coverage is inadequate, Clinton would offer expanded versions of two existing government programs: Medicare, and the health insurance plan currently offered to federal employees. Consumers could choose between either government-run program, but aides stress that no new federal bureaucracy would be created under the Clinton plan.

 

Aides said Clinton will propose several specific measures to pay for her plan, including an end to some of the Bush-era tax cuts for people making more than $250,000 per year. Edwards has vowed to completely repeal the tax cuts for high earners to pay for the cost of his plan, estimated at $90 billion-$120 billion per year, while Obama would pay for his plan in part by letting the tax cuts expire in 2010.

 

In response, Obama said Clinton's plan is similar to one he proposed in the spring, "though my universal health care plan would go further in reducing the punishing cost of health care than any other proposal that's been offered in this campaign."

 

He took another swipe at the Clinton administration's closed-door sessions on health care in the 1990s, saying "the real key to passing any health care reform is the ability to bring people together in an open, transparent process that builds a broad consensus for change." Clinton is also expected to stress several cost-saving measures to help pay for universal coverage. She's already recommended several such proposals, such as computerized medical record-keeping and a reduction in federal overpayments to hospitals and health maintenance organizations. She would also promote wellness and disease prevention as a way to reduce costs.

 

Clinton is sure to court danger from the health insurance industry by proposing several industry reforms. Among other things, she would require insurance companies to provide coverage to all consumers regardless of pre-existing conditions.

 

The insurance industry helped kill Clinton's earlier attempt at health care reform through a multibillion-dollar media and lobbying campaign that included television ads featuring a middle-class couple named Harry and Louise fretting over having to get their insurance through a new "billion-dollar bureaucracy."

 

Republicans have already readied attacks on the Clinton plan. The Republican National Committee sent an e-mail to reporters Monday dubbing it "Hillarycare" and questioning why she waited months to release a plan.

Talking head or political suicide? You decide.

The quality of health care in this country is going to go down the tubes.

The quality of health care in this country is going to go down the tubes.

The number of SMB's in this country is going to go down the tubes.

Requiring health care insurance is not the same as socialized/nationalized medicine. But would it help or hurt the costs of the insurance pool?

 

*paging an Actuary*

better than spending the money on frivelous wars...go clinton

Potentially at least 24 years of the Bush or Clinton family running this country.

 

Shoot me now.

Potentially at least 24 years of the Bush or Clinton family running this country.

 

Shoot me now.

 

 

:| :| :| :| Most depressing thing I've read in awhile. Please don't say such things again so I can pretend they are not happening. At least one great benefit will come from Clinton being elected president: I hear Australia is beautiful and I think I'll enjoy living there...

I'm not sure why the in the US medical services cost so much.

 

Here is my story from an emergency room visit here where I live in Merida, Yucatan:

 

I was doing some gardening work in my yard when I felt a bug bite me on my leg. I thought nothin of it, and went on with my work.

 

However, later that day, I had a very bad itch in the area, so I had my friend drive me to the S.E.M (a big medical services chain here in mexico).

This place was one of the more high end clinics, its right in front of the hyatt (the place where US president Bush stayed when he visisted here)

 

I got treated witihin moments of my arrival a nurse led me to a bed and explained that a docotor would be there in a few moments, the docotor came a few minutes later, I explained my situation, he gave orders for a injection then explained that I'll need a blood test in about a month.

 

Well, when I was finished, I had spent only an hour in the ER, and I went to front desk to pay my bill. To my amazement, all the attetion and services I got, and my bill was 300pesos (about 27USD)

The blood test at the same clinic cost 80 pesos (7USD).

 

I really ask my self, how much would all that cost me if I were living still in West Palm Beach... or how long I would have waited in the queue at St Mary's just to get attetion. :mis2

Potentially at least 24 years of the Bush or Clinton family running this country.

 

Shoot me now.

 

Almost a quater of a century.

 

I just don't get it.

Potentially at least 24 years of the Bush or Clinton family running this country.

 

Shoot me now.

 

Thus why this country needs a salary cap/floor and better distribution of local media money.

this would be a better allocations of funds that that stupid skirmish in the middle east.

I'm not sure why the in the US medical services cost so much.

 

Here is my story from an emergency room visit here where I live in Merida, Yucatan:

 

I was doing some gardening work in my yard when I felt a bug bite me on my leg. I thought nothin of it, and went on with my work.

 

However, later that day, I had a very bad itch in the area, so I had my friend drive me to the S.E.M (a big medical services chain here in mexico).

This place was one of the more high end clinics, its right in front of the hyatt (the place where US president Bush stayed when he visisted here)

 

I got treated witihin moments of my arrival a nurse led me to a bed and explained that a docotor would be there in a few moments, the docotor came a few minutes later, I explained my situation, he gave orders for a injection then explained that I'll need a blood test in about a month.

 

Well, when I was finished, I had spent only an hour in the ER, and I went to front desk to pay my bill. To my amazement, all the attetion and services I got, and my bill was 300pesos (about 27USD)

The blood test at the same clinic cost 80 pesos (7USD).

 

I really ask my self, how much would all that cost me if I were living still in West Palm Beach... or how long I would have waited in the queue at St Mary's just to get attetion. :mis2

Socialized medicine countries are not very deficient in emergency "on the spot" care. That has never been one of the major criticisms. Other than cost, the US and socialized medicine ER room experiences are perhaps more similar than most people realize. This is because the US still has its fair share of people who abuse the ER with minor ailments. Uninsured people are treated and the hospital is forced to compensate.

 

However, the criticism of the socialized system lies in more life threatening illnesses where more competent physicians, access to biotech, better equipped hospitals become absolutely essentially for adequate care.

 

That is why the vast majority of the positive anecdotal evidence for socialized medicine programs is almost always related to basic procedures. Anything beyond that, not so much.

 

 

The clinic I went to was not one of the government run ones, but a private company. I'm just putting my experiece out since in the US something like this would cost 10X more, so most folks wouldnt bother treating themselves if they are not insured

 

Also, just as a point of issue: most folks who can here in mexico, avoid the government run medical services like the plague. Most doctors also avoid working there (though most are obliged to work in them, atleast part time).