She's Baaack: Hillary Clinton tries a new HillaryCare strategy.

National Review Online ^ | May 11, 2004 | Michael F. Cannon

[xsysmgr]

Ever since the Clinton administration's proposal to direct America's health-care system from Washington, D.C., went down in ignominious defeat a decade ago, its chief architect, Hillary Rodham Clinton, has shied away from "comprehensive health care reform." That is, until now.

Breaking what must have been a difficult ten-year silence, Sen. Clinton (D., N.Y.) recently asked on the cover of The New York Times Magazine, "Now Can We Talk About Health Care?" Without waiting for an answer, she called for "a new social contract for a new century premised on joint responsibility to prevent disease and provide those who need care access to it." Unfortunately, the new social contract looks a lot like the old social contract she offered last century.

Except for a few 21st-century garnishes, Clinton's article relies on decade-old misconceptions and contradictions. She argues the U.S. ranks 42nd among nations in infant mortality, even though many nations underreport infant deaths and when measured by birth weight, infants do better in the U.S. than in nations with supposedly lower mortality rates. She claims there are 43 million uninsured Americans despite authoritative scholarship showing the number is closer to half that figure. At the same time she decries the lack of treatments for rare diseases, she praises the same Food and Drug Administration that makes such treatments unprofitable. "Individuals should understand that they put their lives at risk with unhealthy behavior," she says, but risk-based insurance pricing is cruel. Emergency-room overcrowding is not a consequence of socialization, but evidence of the need for greater socialization.

Clinton's prescription remains "universal coverage," despite evidence that what such health systems provide is neither universal nor coverage. In addition to the perverse incentives this would introduce, she hints at rules that would substitute the government's judgment about what treatments are appropriate for the judgment of the physician on the spot, plus similar rules governing health benefits, insurance pricing, medical records, municipalities, hospitals, household cleaners, gym class, diet, urban sprawl, you name it. It's déjà vu, all over again.

The reason behind Clinton's shift in strategy is hidden to all but the most ardent supporters and opponents of socialized medicine.

The recently enacted Medicare prescription-drug law contains a deceptively small provision allowing personal, tax-free health-savings accounts. Health-savings accounts mark a fundamental shift in federal health-care policy. Health-savings accounts treat an individual's medical expenditures and savings on a par with tax-free employer expenditures. As a result, they empower individuals to become stewards of their own health-care dollars rather than force people to depend on their employer to spend those dollars wisely.

The consequences of this little-remarked change will be profound. Health-savings accounts will lead patients to curb rising health-care costs, demand greater value, and eliminate waste because it's their money at stake.

However, the consequences that frighten the Left are political. The Left cannot impose a government-run health-care system without a widespread sense of entitlement and openness to dependence, both of which are manifest in America's health-care sector. Yet health-savings accounts breed the opposite values of personal responsibility and self-reliance. Just as IRAs and 401(k)s made the political landscape more hospitable to Social Security reform by turning millions of Americans into investors, health-savings accounts will generate the political will to enact consumer-based Medicare reforms by turning millions of Americans into sovereign health-care consumers.

Former Sen. Phil Gramm quips that the Left reacts to health-savings accounts like a vampire reacts to a cross, because the Left knows that once patients get a taste of freedom, all hope of achieving a government-run health-care system will vanish.

Clinton inadvertently acknowledges this reason for her change in strategy by veering off-message for several column-inches to denounce health-savings accounts and argue that consumers aren't sophisticated enough to demand value from doctors and will harm themselves by forgoing needed care to save a few bucks. Like all opponents of consumerism, the real object of her disapproval is the public's intelligence.

To the most ardent supporters and opponents of health-care consumerism, Clinton's desire to accelerate socialization makes perfect sense. Considering how health-savings accounts will transform America's health-care sector, it's imperative.

For the first time, advocates of socialized medicine are on the run. This ought to be good.

— Michael F. Cannon is director of health-policy studies for the Cato Institute.

[smiley]

I loathe this witch.

[commish]

THE NEW DEM TALKING POINT IS OUT!

No sooner did Hillary! start this "Can we talk about health care now?" crap, and Jean Al Querry is on the campaign trail today speaking about how Health Care Costs are rising faster than wages.

These bozo's are a one trick pony -- Iraq/Vietnam didn;t work, Worst Economy in 50 years didn't work; so now they are back to the old Health Care Canard.

How soon before the Bush wants to take a way your Social Security ads start running?

[princess leah]

Americans are more savvy about our own healthcare than we were 10 years ago and there's no way heir heinous is going to grab our money out of our wallets!

[rhombus]

I loathe this witch.

I am quite sure she loathes you too.

[Fierce Allegiance]

I am not looking forward to healthcare run like the DMV.

[CholeraJoe]

Government run healthcare - All the efficiency of the Post Office, all the compassion of the IRS, at Pentagon prices.

[sionnsar]

a new social contract for a new century premised on joint responsibility to prevent disease

Totalitarianism rears its ugly head again.

[Paul Atreides]

Remember, when we could go an entire day without having to hear the mention of that hag's name?

Those were the days.

[wingnuts'nbolts]

You, my friend, are not alone. I too, loathe this person.
She must be stopped. Not being relected in NY would work for starters.

[AGreatPer]

This is a trial balloon. The Dems are so desperate for something to stick on the wall, they will do anything.

This too won't work.

Rush is right, it is funny watching them scramble and burry themselves.

[Eagle of Liberty]

Then start putting money into a healthcare-savings account.

[KarlInOhio]

argue that consumers aren't sophisticated enough to demand value from doctors and will harm themselves by forgoing needed care to save a few bucks.

But it's perfectly fine with Hillary if the government harms me by ordering the doctor to forgo needed care to save a few bucks. And, of course, it will be a felony for me to pay for that needed care myself.

[Eagle of Liberty]

Go Giuliani!!!!

[woodyinscc]

Remember, when we could go an entire day without having to hear the mention of that hag's name?

Clinton himself, took her out of the media loop, after her health care fiasco. Let her rail about this all she wants, it will spark memories of her miserable failure.

[Sloth]

[Wally_Kalbacken]

I am concerned that people do not recall the salient aspect of Hillary's first swing at the issue of health care reform. She and Ira Magaziner and a bunch of self-selected "experts" in health care economics met behind closed doors and produced a phone book sized piece of legislation. What was so telling about Hillary and her ilk was the way they essentially threw that massive piece of legislation on the table at Congressional hearings and insisted upon an up or down vote. They were smarter than the rest of us and they could produce this masterpiece of legislation and we were asked to swallow it whole. Occasionally you hear some sort of assault on Republicans and the Bush Administration as having supported an "anti-democratic" actions - but what could be more anti-democratic than crafting a massive piece of extremely complex legislation with the goal of transforming about one-sixth of the economy - and then refuse to allow it to be examined and considered and modified by the Congress?

I have confidence that people (outside of N.Y. state) are much smarter than they were in 1994 - and her efforts will fly like a lead balloon.

 

[Libertarianize the GOP]

bump

[Protagoras]

How soon before the Bush wants to take a way your Social Security ads start running?

The better question is, "how long before Bush advocates getting rid of that Ponzi Scheme and privatizing retirement in this country?"

[lilylangtree]

"Hillary's got this huge book, it's a memoir of her life and times at the White House. In the book she says when Bill told her he was having an affair, she said 'I could hardly breath, I was gulping for air.' No, I'm sorry, that's what Monica said." - David Letterman

"Hillary Clinton's book hits the stores this Monday. Oh boy, it took her a long time to write it. But in her defense, every time she tried to use the desk, Bill was always using it for a date." - Jay Leno

"Hillary Clinton's 506-page memoirs comes out next week. So much of her personality shines through, that in the end, you'll want to sleep with an intern." - Craig Kilborn

"In Hillary Clinton's new book 'Living History,' Hillary details what it was like meeting Bill Clinton, falling in love with him, getting married, and living a passionate, wonderful life as husband and wife. Then on page two, the trouble starts." - Jay Leno "

"Hillary Clinton has finished her memoirs for publication next year, while Bill has barely finished the first chapter. Well, in all fairness, Fiction is a lot harder to write." - Jay Leno

"Hillary Clinton, our junior senator from New York, announced that she has no intentions of ever, ever running for office of the President of the United States. Her husband, Bill Clinton, is bitterly disappointed. He is crushed. There go his dreams of becoming a two-impeachment family." - David Letterman

"Last night, Senator Hillary Clinton hosted her first party in her new home in Washington. People said it was a lot like the parties she used to host at the White House. In fact, even the furniture was the same." - Jay Leno

"Senator Hillary Clinton is attacking President Bush for breaking his campaign promise to cut carbon dioxide emissions, saying a promise made, a promise broken. And then out of habit, she demanded that Bush spend the night on the couch." - Late, Late Show host Craig Kilborn

"Hillary Clinton is the junior senator from the great state of New York. When they swore her in, she used the Clinton family Bible. You know, the one with only seven commandments." - David Letterman

"CNN found that Hillary Clinton is the most admired woman in America. Women admire her because she's strong and successful. Men admire her because she allows her husband to cheat and get away with it." - Jay Leno