Why Clinton is full of B.S. (and to a lesser extent Obama) - Health Care

[Bread and Circus]

From Physicians for National Health Plan (reprinted from the NYT)

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2007/december/i_am_not_a_health_re.php

By DAVID U. HIMMELSTEIN and STEFFIE WOOLHANDLER
The New York Times | Op-Ed

December 15, 2007

IN 1971, President Nixon sought to forestall single-payer national health insurance by proposing an alternative. He wanted to combine a mandate, which would require that employers cover their workers, with a Medicaid-like program for poor families, which all Americans would be able to join by paying sliding-scale premiums based on their income.

Nixon’s plan, though never passed, refuses to stay dead. Now Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama all propose Nixon-like reforms. Their plans resemble measures that were passed and then failed in several states over the past two decades.

In 1988, Massachusetts became the first state to pass a version of Nixon’s employer mandate — and it added an individual mandate for students and the self-employed, much as Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Edwards (but not Mr. Obama) would do today. Michael Dukakis, then the state’s governor, announced that “Massachusetts will be the first state in the country to enact universal health insurance.” But the mandate was never fully put into effect. In 1988, 494,000 people were uninsured in Massachusetts. The number had increased to 657,000 by 2006.

Oregon, in 1989, combined an employer mandate with an expansion of Medicaid and the rationing of expensive care. When the federal government granted the waivers needed to carry out the program, Gov. Barbara Roberts said, “Today our dreams of providing effective and affordable health care to all Oregonians have come true.” The number of uninsured Oregonians did not budge.

In 1992 and ‘93, similar bills passed in Minnesota, Tennessee and Vermont. Minnesota’s plan called for universal coverage by July 1, 1997. Instead, by then the number of uninsured people in the state had increased by 88,000....


much more at link.

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Bottom line: Mandates don't work. The system needs to be scrapped in favor of Single Payer.

[Recursion]

1. We have "mandatory" auto insurance...

...but I've twice been hit by an uninsured driver.

It's a broken model.

[Bread and Circus]

2. State after state with "mandated" health insurance has failed

[havocmom]

5. Good point

Single payer is the only thing that will really help. Insurance Lobby must be taken apart if we are gonna get anything that does work.

[Bread and Circus]

11. aye!

[canadian_is_cold]

3. Why no just give it to everyone free, like we have in Canada n/t

[KittyWampus]

4. We'd have to pay taxes. But if my money goes to a national fund & not private corporation

[havocmom]

7. Yep. I wouldn't mind paying the taxes to support a health care system that worked

(so long as the rich and corporations also paid a FAIR share of taxes) but being REQUIRED TO PAY A FOR-PROFIT CORPORATION (through payroll taxes, no less) in order to work in America? :wtf: That is pretty blatant corporate welfare.

Taking money out of pay checks and giving it to insurance companies to invest in the stock market is also payroll taxes given to Wall Street. They aren't having much luck turning payroll taxes to support Social Security over to private investment firms, so this is just an end run abound the collective common sense.

Frankly, the working class is not able to carry any more of the load to keep the top 1% in the style they have become accustomed to. Payroll deductions to corporations that have been screwing workers more every day for the past 40 years? Why not just legalize slavery. It amounts to the same thing when you get right down to it

[Sensitivity]

6. Both Plans compromise with "existing healthcare power structure"

Hillary's has a huge downside with its threatening "mandate" in the country of the free and the brave.

[NoBushSpokenHere]

8. Does anyone know the cost of premiums of the Congressional Health Insurance?

I have been searching for the actual premium costs ever since Gov. Strickland said Hillary's plan was to make the Congressional Health Plan available to anyone who wanted to pay the monthly premium. Haven't been able to find out exactly how much those premiums are. The problem is as Obama stated - America cannot afford premiums...

I want to know the actual premium cost - does anyone have a link?

[BzaDem]

9. It's not just mandates.

It's mandates + subsidies. She would limit health care premiums to a fixed percentage of income. That is exactly how social security works right now. 6% of your income is withheld from EVERYONE. Social security would never work if it weren't mandated. The same idea applies to healthcare. If all the healthy people don't pay into the system, the costs grow astronomically high for those who need the insurance.

[Bread and Circus]

10. bump...