Posted on 09/20/2007 5:25:50 AM PDT by Brilliant
Some of the details have changed, but at the heart of Sen. Hillary Clinton's new health-care proposal are the same flaws that sunk her first version. They flow from her distrust of markets...profit-motivated private enterprise, and from her consequent faith that Washington knows best.
As governor of Massachusetts, I led the fight for reforms that used free markets and innovation, rather than big-government control...
Her plan has several weaknesses and should be distinguished from the reforms I led in Massachusetts...
• Raise taxes. The new plan is slated to cost $110 billion a year. And to pay for the new entitlement -- a tax hike...
• Expand government insurance. People who don't obtain insurance through their employer are invited to buy a government-run, Medicare-like plan... It's the gentle slope to a single payer, socialized medicine model...
• Impose a national model on everyone...
• Significantly increase the role of the federal government at the expense of free markets...
• Leave the mandate problem unsolved... I chose an individual mandate only after we had done our best to reform state insurance regulations -- lowering premiums...
Let's be clear here: My plan in Massachusetts worked very differently than Sen. Clinton's plan would...
we used the money we were already getting from the federal government to help the poor purchase their own private insurance...
we found a path for most individuals to purchase insurance with pre-tax dollars... And finally, once premiums had been lowered and the poor were able to afford private insurance, my plan called for people to either purchase insurance or pay their own way...
I have announced my health-care plan for the nation. It follows the principles I pursued in Massachusetts...
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
The truth is that most of the complaints he makes about Hillary's plan can also be made against his MA plan, which by the way, does not work.
Just my 2 cents.
It’s unfortunate, but I don’t believe a candidate can be elected without proposing some sort of health care plan, or effectively explaining why we shouldn’t have a nationalized health care system.
I have a chronic disease and I have read many threads on message boards where the “voting public” are calling for nationalized healthcare. These people, of course, aren’t informed as to the implications, but that doesn’t keep them from thinking it’s a good idea.
If Hillary is the only one offering some sort of healthcare solution, be it sound or not, she will win the votes of many uninformed independent voters.
I’m not in Mitt’s camp, but he’s talking about it (I believe Thompson is too), and if we don’t talk about it, and combat what Hillary is proposing with sound, logical, easy to understand explanations of why it won’t work, and what they’re proposing in it’s place, I think it will be a mistake. The issue can’t be ignored this election cycle...it has to be confronted, head on.
Hillary doesn’t distrust the profit motive in medicine. She privately invested in it.
It is about establishing a legacy and owning an “issue”. Incrementalist socialism.
You have the freedom to choose whatever coverage you want from whatever insurance company and medical provider that you want up to what you can afford (or privately set some of your own money aside for a "rainy day").
If there is a right to "free" medical care is there also a right to 3 "free" meals a day and a bed to sleep in for "free"? How about a right to a "free" burial plot?
Why does public transportation cost to get on the bus or rail? The systems are already subsidized by taxpayers. Why not fully fund them and let people ride for free?
Certainly more people would hop on a bus if one was coming up and they wanted a lift up the street. But in the end it isn't about taking cars off the road.
Oh, I totally agree. The point is, somebody has to make that clear to the voting public...they are not listening, at this point, and will jump on Hillarycare like fleas on a dog if they are not informed.
A year and a half ago I needed some serious medical help for a condition unrelated to my ‘chronic.’ In pursuing medical help I found amazing things hospitals already do to help people like me. Even if you make more than poverty level you can get reduced rates at most hospitals. The hitch is you have to ask. Second, almost all the doctors who I dealt with reduced their office visit costs 40-60% because I paid upfront at the time of visit. The outpatient surgery I needed was reduced by 50% because I asked, negotiated, and paid for half the cost the day of the surgery.
Why do I keep repeating this story over and over...because I don’t think we need a national health care system. The reform needs to come from the patient and doctor relationship. I see a doctor maybe 3 times a year. One for ongoing care, one for a checkup, and once maybe for a bad cold/flu. Cost for these visits...under $300. Cost for me to carry insurance to have a $20 co-pay? $7200 per year. That is a real chunk of change for me...one I can better invest for the rainy day.
Anyone with any type of fiscal common sense can see something is wrong with that picture. Now the government wants to require me to pay for insurance so everyone can be insured?
Why and by what right?
Agreed, it has to be an individual decision. We have a group policy, and our contribution is about $300 per month, however, I use a medication that would cost me many times that if we didn’t have group, so for us it’s well worth the money. That’s why it has to be a personal decision.
That's bold faced LIE that nobody seems to want to tackle.
It will cost TRILLIONS, not billions.
110 billion is what Canada's then finance minister Paul Martin cut from Canada's health care system,(which costs in the trillions for 30 million people) sending the Canadian health care system on a downward spiral towards self destruction. Not that it was any good before that.
Then the Canadian Liberal party spent the next 10 years promising the forgetful Canadian citizen every election to "fix" the health care system they broke, while bragging how they had a balanced budget at health care's expense.
Once Hillary gets Health care firmly under government control, it will become a regular election issue just like Canada's is. Politicians on all sides will then be arguing not if we should have universal health care, but how to "fix" it.
That cost isn't bad at all. If you were a Canadian with a cronic illness, but working and making say the average $60,000 yr. salary, you'd be paying at least $20,000 through taxation for your health care, plus be exempt because of your salary from taking advantage of any low income breaks such as Pharmacare, which is a supliment to help offset your medication costs.
What we have here is far superior, a Chronic illness in Canada usually results in those patents seeking treatment in the USA anyways, because they just don't have the facilities that treat them in Canada. In most of those cases they have to pay those costs out of their own pocket, because that treatment isn't covered by their Canadian health care system.
I also have a chronic illness, but fortunately it developed later in life, after I had already socked away my own "health care plan" for my retirement years, which now covers all my expenses nicely and still generates capitol.
I oppose Mitt Romney because he is too articulate and smart, thinks through the issues too much, actually forms opinions and later changes them when he learns more, not like most good politicians who just pick one position and keep it by not ever learning anything about what they are talking about.
A guy like Mitt can’t be trusted to do what the handlers want, because he is too intelligent, too educated, too much of a thinker. What’s worse, when he speaks you can understand what he is saying, and it makes sense, and who wants THAT in a President. He’s just too smooth, you can’t trust people who speak like they are sincere.
We need a guy who when he speaks you know he isn’t sincere, because that way we know he isn’t lying to us.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.