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 If It’s Broke, Fix ItPosted on Sep 18, 2007By Marie Cocco WASHINGTON—The era of “Hillarycare” has ended. The notion that “Hillary Can” may have arrived.
Healing the nation’s sick health insurance system—the expensive, inequitable, inefficient and altogether infuriating monstrosity that fails to cover 47 million Americans—is a code red emergency. This patient has grown sicker since first lady Hillary Clinton was unable
Americans now have come around to this way of thinking. Polls consistently show a majority supports some sort of national health insurance system that covers everyone—even if it means paying higher taxes. Of course, much of the polling back in 1993 also showed high public anxiety about health care and a similar hankering for change. That was before the political charges about Hillary and health care got so much uglier than the chatter about her headbands. Now Clinton is the leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination and the hands-down leader in knowledge of the country’s crazy-quilt health insurance and delivery system—not to mention the unrivaled expert on the crass political calculations that go into destroying every effort to change it. The headline Clinton wanted out of Monday’s big health care speech in Iowa is the title of her plan: “The American Health Choices Plan.” Out is any suggestion of what conservatives call “one-size-fits-all” health insurance. Unmentioned is anything resembling “government-run health care,” the bogeyman Republicans believe still scares many Americans more than the genuine threat they’ll be bankrupted by illness. Clinton instead proposes that all Americans be required to purchase a policy, with subsidies provided to those who can’t afford one. She reiterated her plan to crack down on some of the insurance industry’s most odious practices such as denying coverage to those with existing illnesses or even the expectation—based on some past test—that a person might one day develop a disease. Her approach is similar to that of Democratic rival John Edwards but less cumbersome in its specifics. It is more expansive than the health-insurance initiative offered by Barack Obama, who would not mandate universal coverage. The details, though, are less relevant than the politics: Clinton is sure to anger liberals and positively infuriate Republicans—making her look like the responsible centrist in the fight. Those, like me, who believe we should do away with the health insurance industry and break our increasingly unworkable reliance on employers as the linchpin of the system, have no candidate—other than the endearing but unelectable Dennis Kucinich—offering a simple, efficient, plan such as Medicare for everyone. Those who want to depict Clinton as an extremist may be even more disappointed. The idea of an individual mandate to buy insurance is—gasp—Republican! Go back, once again, to 1993. Before the GOP decided to kill Clinton’s health care initiative altogether, 23 Republican senators—including minority leader Robert Dole of Kansas—signed onto legislation sponsored by the late Rhode Island Sen. John Chafee that would have accomplished universal coverage through such an individual requirement. Last year, Massachusetts—led by Mitt Romney when he billed himself as a problem-solving governor, not an archconservative wooing Republican presidential primary voters—used an individual mandate as the basis for its new universal coverage system. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger also embraces the idea. Now that Clinton agrees, Republicans who were once for individual mandates are fully expected to be against them. Romney, who has distanced himself from the Massachusetts system he once championed, already has decried the new Clinton proposal as inspired by “European bureaucracies.” Never mind that the only bureaucracies Clinton relies upon are all-American: Medicare and the existing insurance system for federal government employees. The rhetoric against any serious effort to repair the health insurance system that has broken the bank—and the hearts—of millions of Americans inevitably gets more divorced from reality the closer reform comes. Not that we’re so close to reform. It’s still more than a year until next November’s election. The outcome is unknown.
The only sure bet on Clinton’s return to the health insurance debate is that she’ll drive the opponents of change batty.
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‘Collateral Damage’ Not Much Different from Targeted Killing
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By Sandy, September 25, 2007 at 6:43 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Hillary is not proposing subsidies, she is proposing tax credits. BIG difference to the people who don’t have health insurance because they can’t afford it.
Chris Dodd has subsidies. His plan has automatic enrollment and automatic sliding scale. Obama’s plan includes a mechanism to actually monitor insurance so they provide the coverage people expect.
Don’t be fooled by all this praise over Hillary’s plan. Doesn’t anybody remember all the hoopla over Bill’s college assistance plans, the Hope College Credit? If that didn’t help you, then neither will Hillary’s tax credits - except you’ll be mandated to pay hundreds of dollars a month you can’t afford.
Any other Democrat would be better than Hillary. We have a chance to make real change. I hope people think twice before jumping on her bandwagon.
Report thisBy cyrena, September 19, 2007 at 2:10 pm #
#101404 by Max Shields
Max,
Thanks for the clarification. I never realized that Hillary used it in her own presentations, because I guess I haven’t been paying that much attention to her. (I’m for Barack Obama);)
Still, I appreciate the insight. And, I think you’re right. We aren’t gonna see a universal health care system. Now supposedly, here in my own State, (California) there has been a program initiated to provide such. But, as you’ve mentioned, that will only succeed as a local sort of thing. I don’t see it being universal, and they will never reach the portion of society that needs it the most.
Matter of fact, while everybody is talking up universal health care, we can’t even take care of our own veterans who come back here torn to pieces. If that’s any indication of how a Universal Health Care system would work, then we’re all obviously screwed.
Now, all of that would change, if we took the PROFIT out of the business, and just took it back to practicing medicine, and healing communities. But, that would put the insurance companies out of business, which is why it will never happen.
Report thisBy Max Shields, September 19, 2007 at 12:39 pm #
#101395 by cyrena on 9/19 at 11:37 am
“...in the larger picture of what insurance companies do, its equivalent as far as Im concerned.
Because, not all people OWN and drive a car, just for the hell of it.”
You are right, Marie did not use the analogy, but Hillary does when she talks about mandating health care insurance.
I was, however explicit, I didn’t say that there is no commonality, I said that there is a clear difference.
Auto-insurance is comparable primarily as a political sales pitch; i.e., to mollify those who see it as an unncessary expense - in other words, it’s like Bush saying Iraq occupation is like South Korea occupation. We learned to ignore the first, so we’ll learn to ignore the latter.
Health care is as basic as safety and security, as clean water and air, as universally needed as education. All of these are tax based systems that ensure public coverage, accountability and transparency.
Personally, I don’t think we’ll see real universal health care in my life. I think we should consider community Health Care Cooperatives and free clinics.
Report thisBy cyrena, September 19, 2007 at 11:37 am #
#101283 by Max Shields
Max,
I didn’t see anything in Marie’s piece about auto insurance. (I just re-read it). So, I think it was ME who made the analogy, And, in the larger picture of what insurance companies do, its equivalent as far as Im concerned.
Because, not all people OWN and drive a car, just for the hell of it. For instance, for 17 years, I lived in a location that required a vehicle, in order to get to work. (no public transportation, and it was too far to walk.) So, in simple language, without a vehicle, AND the mandated insurance, one cannot access employment in many areas. Id say that has a hell of a lot to do with social and economic equivalency. I say the same thing about the hundreds of thousands of poor people in rural areas, where many of them never see a medical professional, because of how far removed they are, which NO transportation.
Additionally, my former employer REQUIRED that all employees purchase life insurance, and of course they had just the plan. (I was able to find a lesser expensive one than the company was offering, but my point is that it was REQUIRED, in order for me to remain employed.) Because, thats how Corporations rule the world.
So, Im the one who made the analogy of car insurance and medical insurance (as a MANDATE, because thats what this article is talking about. Its talking about REQUIRING everybody to have health insurance as a matter of policy, and therefore LAW. It wasnt Marie.
Report thisBy Leefeller, September 19, 2007 at 10:36 am #
Health Insurance salesman to the customer.
Well, if you need the price you cannot afford it!
Report thisBy Nathan Hetrick, September 19, 2007 at 7:03 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
I echo the above sentiments on Dennis Kucinich. He is the only candidate running for office in the two major parties who advocates a truly universal healthcare system. Many of Hillary’s donors are health insurance companies...and of course they love her health care proposal. Vote Dennis Kucinich, he is a non-corporate candidate who actually wants health care for all Americans, not just those who can afford it.
Report thisBy Max Shields, September 19, 2007 at 5:54 am #
Correction
#101282 by Max Shields on 9/19 at 5:51 am
(140 comments total)
By the by, Marie, health care is NOT the same as auto insurance. The former requires that you be a live; the latter that you decide to own and drive a car. The economic, social and ethical imperatives are NOT equivalent.
Report thisBy Max Shields, September 19, 2007 at 5:51 am #
By the by, Marie, health care is NOT the same as auto insurance. The former requires that you be a live; the latter that you decide to own and drive a car. The economic, social and ethical imperatives are equivalent.
Report thisBy Max Shields, September 19, 2007 at 4:38 am #
Marie,
You and Hillary just don’t know what’s wrong with our so-called health care system. Her “plan” is purely political and does not deal with the root causes of our broken system.
Must this be repeated? The delivery system is broken as measured by relative outcomes. People covered are undercovered (and what in Hillary’s “plan” changes that?). The Insurance companies are the biggest part of the problem - THEY NEED TO BE REMOVED from the system not “repaired”.
Choice is a political catch word for keeping the system pretty much as it is but pumping it with some Federal dollars. Choosing a doctor or facility can be achieved without profit-based privatized health care. The kind of actual care IS NOT determined by the the payer (single or private). It is NEVER A ONE SIZE FITS all. That’s a political empty red herring that has nothing to do with reality but right-wing framing and talking points.
Marie, you should stop studying Clinton’s plan and her standing vis a vis her last go ‘round and her polls numbers; and, do what Kucinich has done, start looking and studying the health care system; and do a needs based analysis (not an expedient political analysis).
You’ll actually learn something meaningful.
Report thisBy cyrena, September 18, 2007 at 6:39 pm #
Marie, you’ve hit it on the head again....very REPUBLICAN concept, this “insurance” mandate. Try driving in the State of Texas without that kind of insurance, as well as the actual PROOF of it on one’s person. In the event of a rountine traffic stop, or a rountine occassion of harassment for “driving while black”, one can anticipate going straight to the pokey without “proof” of such “insurance”.
And without medical insurance, too many millions of others go straight to the cemetary, once they are turned away from all of the medical establishments. (on account of they don’t have any insurance, let alone “proof” of it).
Hillary’s plan doesn’t change any of that.
If we couldn’t afford the medical insurance before it was mandated, how exactly are we supposed to afford it just because of the mandate? And how exactly do we cover the mentally ill through this mandate? They should all sign up on the sheet for the mentally ill, and then she’ll just mail out the policy with the instructions?
The Cubans do this a whole lot better ya know.
Report thisBy Marshall K, September 18, 2007 at 2:03 pm #
So it looks like I’m going to be shelling out $500 bucks a month just like I do now to cover my family with a $2000 deductible plan. F*cking politicians are totally owned by the insurance companies. Tell me, just what is wrong with Medicare for everybody? Is it because Hillary needs the insurance industries’ money since she gave back all of Hsu’s contributions?
Report thisBy Tom Semioli, September 18, 2007 at 1:23 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
If it ain’t HRH 676 it ain’t healthy for Americans. Here we go again with the lesser of two evils…
Report thisBy John F. Butterfield, September 18, 2007 at 1:09 pm #
Dennis Kucinich for president.
Why is anyone even bothering with Hillary?
Dennis Kucinich for president.
Report thisBy Louise, September 18, 2007 at 1:02 pm #
Good job Hillary!
Stick it to the people by guaranteeing EVERYBODY will have to feed the coffers of the filthy rich!
More money for the insurance industry.
Way to go!
I know you are very, very busy. Must take a lot of time figuring out how to use the peoples pain and suffering for political gain [so very republican of you] But please, take a few minutes out of your busy schedule and go watch SiCKO.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/
Might help you understand.
Report thisBy Leefeller, September 18, 2007 at 6:20 am #
Hilliary is putting the health insurance companies in her pocket. Mandatory health insurance paid for by us and in some cases the government. Another tax? You know if we taxed the churches, we may cover the bill.
Maybe we should all start our own health insurance programs, so we can get in on the jingle too. Sort of like Blackwater contractors raking in the money from the military.
Insurance companies are for profit bureaucracies, Repbulicans like to make money on the insurance companies, they would loose their sugar daddy with federal bureaucracies.
Kucinich has the only healthcare plan, which would work and really be a change.
Report thisBy KISS, September 18, 2007 at 4:38 am #
Not to worry Marie, when the Insurance lobbyist and big Pharma’s get through this will be such a revenue maker for them that even the Pentagon will be dwarfed. The subsidy for the poor will be a tax credit for those too poor to pay taxes...Heh!
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