[NYTr] Clinton vows health care for all

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

AP via Toronto Globe & Mail - Sep 17, 2007
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070917.wclinton0917/BNStory/International/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20070917.wclinton0917

Clinton vows health care for all

By BETH FOUHY
Associated Press

DES MOINES, Iowa — Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham
Clinton on Monday offered a sweeping health care reform plan to ensure
coverage for all Americans with federal assistance to help defray the
cost.

Thirteen years after her first effort was abandoned — but saying she
still bore the scars from that failure, Ms. Clinton described her new
plan as necessary to address the crisis of some 47 million uninsured.

“I believe everyone — every man, woman and child — should have quality,
affordable health care in America,” the New York senator told an
audience in Iowa. She vowed to accomplish the goal in her first term.

Her original plan was an unprecedented initiative for a first lady.
This time, she is offering a $110 billion a year program as a candidate
for the presidency, in the leadoff state that is her toughest
battleground. The health care plan came late in her primary campaign,
after several rivals had already described their visions.

 Dismissing the inevitable Republican criticism, Ms. Clinton admonished
the crowd. “I know my Republican opponents will try to equate health
care for all Americans with government-run health care. Don't let them
fool us again. This is not government-run.”

Ms. Clinton 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 favour of a plan that
stresses simplicity, cost control and consumer choice.

The centrepiece of Clinton's “American Health Choices 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.

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 Mr. Obama,
who has said individuals cannot be forced to purchase insurance until
the cost of coverage is substantially reduced.

Aides said Ms. 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.

Ms. 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. Ms. 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, Ms. 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 Ms. Clinton plan.

Ms. Clinton proposed 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. Mr. 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 Mr. Obama would
pay for his plan in part by letting the tax cuts expire in 2010.

In response, Mr. Obama said Ms. 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.”

Other Democratic rivals were swift in their criticism.

Delaware Sen. Joe Biden said, “If universal health-care plans could
have gotten us health care, we would have gotten it a long time ago,”
while Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd said, “To ensure all Americans have
affordable health care will take more than leadership that simply knows
how to fight.”

Added John Edwards: “If you're going to negotiate universal health care
with the same powerful interests that defeated it before, your proposal
isn't a plan, it's a starting point.”

Republican Mitt Romney, in New York City for a fundraising stop,
criticized Clinton's proposal, saying, “ ‘Hillary care' continues to be
bad medicine ... in her plan, we have Washington-managed health care.
Fundamentally, she takes her inspiration from European bureaucracies.”

The plan that Mr. Romney helped institute while governor of
Massachusetts requires the same individual insurance mandate as Ms.
Clinton's and uses state subsidies to help reduce the cost of private
coverage. Since then, Mr. Romney has said he would leave it up to the
states to decide whether they supported such a mandate.