AP Interview: Clinton on health care

Yahoo! News ^ | September 18, 2007 | Beth Fouhy

[2ndDivisionVet]

Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday that a mandate requiring every American to purchase health insurance was the only way to achieve universal health care but she rejected the notion of punitive measures to force individuals into the health care system.

"At this point, we don't have anything punitive that we have proposed," the presidential candidate said in an interview with The Associated Press. "We're providing incentives and tax credits which we think will be very attractive to the vast majority of Americans."

She said she could envision a day when "you have to show proof to your employer that you're insured as a part of the job interview — like when your kid goes to school and has to show proof of vaccination," but said such details would be worked out through negotiations with Congress.

Clinton unveiled her health care plan Monday in Iowa, promising to bring coverage to every American by building on the current employer-based system and using tax credits to make insurance more affordable.

She told the AP she relished a debate over health care with her political opponents, including Republicans "who understood that we had to reform health care before they started running for president."

On Tuesday, Clinton began airing a 30-second ad statewide in Iowa and New Hampshire promoting her new health care plan. The ad reminds viewers of her failed effort to pass universal health care in the early 1990s, trying to portray a thwarted enterprise as one of vision.

"She changed our thinking when she introduced universal health care to America," the ad's announcer says.

The ad also highlights her support as senator for an expanded Children's Health Insurance Program and for more affordable vaccines.

Her health care plan would require every American to buy health insurance, offering tax credits and subsidies to help those who can't afford it. The mandatory aspect of her proposal, however, gets glossed over in the ad.

"Now she has a health care plan that lets you keep your coverage if you like it, provides affordable choices if you don't, and covers every American," the ad says.

The ad also continues her campaign's effort to appropriate the mantle of change away from rivals Barack Obama and John Edwards. The word change or its variations appears four times in the ad, which ends: "So, if you're ready for change, she's ready to lead."

Though her ads are airing in major markets in both states, they are appaearing with greater frequency in Iowa. Polls of voters in New Hampshire show her with a double digit lead over Obama and Edwards, but polls in Iowa show the three of them clustered together.

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[Mygirlsmom]

I applaud you, King, you're a rarity. My point, unless I'm misinformed, is that participation in Medicare at age 65 is pretty much mandatory unless you're able to go it completely alone (not sure that there are too many insurance plans left that will act as a primary carrier if the insured is eligible for Medicare) Therefore, at age 65, choice is pretty much gone.

Socialists accomplish their goals through incrementalism, and IMO, Medicare has paved the way for the acceptance of Hillarycare. What most people don't understand is that the only reason Medicare hasn't totally imploded long ago is that private carriers have been picking up the slack created by the low reimbursement levels associated with Medicare and Medicaid

[linn37]

If the hospital I work for could dump our healthcare benefit and let us buy our own they would. This plan of hers sucks.

[The Louiswu]

"Hillary Care will cost 1.26 Trillion!"

At least, if we are lucky.

[Murray the R]

Staunch Mitt supporters don’t see it as “mandatory”, but rather “market based” instead.

Strictly speaking, both can be true; the term "market based" simply accentuates the positive, i.e., the extent to which the plan respects free-market principles, rather than the extent to which it violates those principles.

[DBrow]

A Massachusetts insurance commission sets minimum rates and minimum coverage for the insurance providers (not the insurance companies, the rules come from the state).

Then, everyone must sign up or they will charge you through your taxes.

If it were market based, there would be no rate setting, the insurance providers would compete for your business, and the deals would be so good you’d sign up.

Health insurance rates in MA are going up between 8 and 12% for the next fiscal year.