Posted on 09/18/2007 4:17:45 AM PDT by shrinkermd
...As she spoke, memories of the Clinton years wafted through my head — government by seminar running into the late hours. But as she will tell you (before you even have a chance to ask), she has learned a lot since the early 1990s, and while the conversations may still be endless, they are also more restrained.
And it’s true. The plan she unveiled yesterday is much simpler than the one she came up with 14 years ago. Back then, she and her staff were like technocratic engineers, one of her advisers told me, trying to patch every last gap in their edifice. This time they were content to leave the details of the plan to Congress.
Last time, they threatened people who were satisfied with their health coverage. This time they reassure them that nothing will change. Last time, they were out of touch with the American values of choice and individual freedom. This time they emphasize those values every chance they get, never seriously considering a Canadian-style single-payer system.
This time the change is evolutionary, not revolutionary. The private insurance/employer-based system will still remain the heart and soul of the social contract — it’s just that more people will be given tax credits so they can afford to buy in.
The Clinton plan makes life politically difficult for Mitt Romney. She relies on an individual insurance mandate. So does his plan in Massachusetts. The Clinton plan also takes the brave step of taxing the wealthy for gold-plated health care benefits — a reform that almost every Republican health expert endorses. Meanwhile, the plan seems to have driven John Edwards around the bend. The statement he issued yesterday qualifies as the shrillest statement issued by a major presidential candidate this year.
(Excerpt) Read more at select.nytimes.com ...
This problem began during WW II when employers because wages were frozen offered health care as an incentive. The IRS later declared these costs not taxable to the employee; hence, health care became employer based and government subsidized. Medicare and Medcaid began in 1965. The former was for the elderly and the latter for the poor. Demand and costs have exploded in both these programs. For example, in Ohio Medicaid expenses now exceed monies spent on K1-12 education. In Florida Medicaid costs have gone up, on the average, 13% a year; Medicaid in Florida now represents one-quarter of the state budget. Medicare in 2003 as now constituted will cost 25 percent of federal income-tax revenues. The unfunded liability for the next 75 years is 63 trillion dollars--more than five times the current GDP. As seen by the Urban Institute Medicare suffers from the four I’s:”inadequate, inefficient, inequitable and insolvent.”, Dr. Gratzer’s three broad remedies are: (1) Health care must be made portable; (2) We need to re-think how we provide elderly health care; (3) And, we must do this in a way that maintains and extends innovation in drugs and health care devices.
"...The basic problem with US health care is payment is divorced from care. Americans do not directly pay for the health care they receive.
The Clintons and the N.Y. times, liars with an agenda.
Mitt Romney is a big supporter of 100% health coverage. The for-profit companies like HCA won’t make a profit until it becomes a reality. Romney has already implemented it in Mass and supports a nationwide system like Hillary’s.
“Last time, they threatened people who were satisfied with their health coverage. This time they reassure them that nothing will change. “
So we will still pay into Medicare and Mediucaid and with our tax cuts gone we will pay for those without health insurance.
No, I’m, not threatened in the least. /s
This isn't entirely true. Some of us have HSA's. If everyone used HSA's it would go a long way towards fixing what is wrong.
Two other things that need to be done to make health care affordable is tort reform and insurance reform.
It's really no more complicated than that.
One thing is for sure, if you think health care is expensive now, wait until it's "free"....
This is still going to be a problem politically for the GOP. Young parents struggling with the cost of family health insurance are going to be easy targets for the mommy party. They aren’t going to much care for GOP’ers preaching federalism and personal responsibility and just saying no. Especially if the candidate looks like Grandpa on Medicare. Sorry, I wish it were otherwise but we’ve been down this road before and I think the drumbeats are louder this time as the costs are even higher. I believe moderates and independents are going to swing toward SOME sort of health care program this time and rationalize that the warts can be cleaned up later.
Maybe all things, routine or not.
How do I know that?
I have seen the prices tumble when the patients are paying out of pocket for their own, uninsured care.
Wise up Americans, this pseudocrisis is just a put-up job.
It is as phony as global warming.
Get the insurers, the feds, and the employers out of the process and the market will fix the problem but quick.
Exactly my thought.
Put more simply, people are going to vote for the candidate who promises them the most free stuff. And that candidate will be Hillary Clinton.
1) Tort reform to prevent lawyers from driving up the Doc’s insurance premiums.
2) Prevent administrators from determining what is covered treatment. If the Doc says it’s necessary that’s all that matters.
Can anyone explain exactly what that means? And who are the wealthy?
Trial lawyers are among the largest contributors to the Dem Party. No Dem is going to do anything wrt tort reform.
Exactly!
I found myself stunned to see and hear Joe Scarborough kissing Hillary Clinton’s ass this morning, basically asking her multiple times for forgiveness for ‘the 1990’s’.
If anyone wondered why MSNBC hired Joe Scarborough to replace Don Imus, you got your answer this morning.
Whats amusing was his reference ‘I’m going to get creamed by the bloggers for this’....which came across pretty much the same way a teenager out way beyond his parents curfew does....(eyes rolling)
Gotta include the ambulance chasing lawyers like the Silk Pony, too......
That extends to both sides of the aisle. 535 members of Congress and 533 of them are lawyers.....okay maybe not that many, but you get my point.....
The Left institutionalizing their mistakes. The one thing they’re good at.
She says there is a basic right to health care.
Should there not also be a basic right to the food we all need to survive every day?
And what about the right to a place to live?
Al Gore believed in a basic right for poor people to have free internet and saw to it that we got taxed on our phone bills to pay for it.
Did he put his knee pads on first? Did he have a little spot of something on his collar?
‘Did he put his knee pads on first? Did he have a little spot of something on his collar?’
No, he dropped to his knees with no thought for his own comfort....(eyes rolling)
What was telling was hearing him preemptively note the bloggers would nail him to a cross for his softball interview of Her Thighness. He knew what he was doing as he did it, in other words.
Way to go Joe. MSNBC is so very very proud of you today....
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