Posted on 09/17/2007 2:17:11 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
(CBS News) DES MOINES, Iowa -- Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton issued a call for universal health care on Monday, plunging back into a political battle she memorably waged and lost as first lady more than a decade ago.
"This is not government-run," Clinton said of her plan to extend coverage to an estimated 47 million Americans who now go without.
She called for a requirement for businesses to obtain insurance for employees, and said the wealthy should pay higher taxes to help defray the cost for those less able to pay for it. She put the government's cost at $110 billion a year.
"Perhaps more than anybody else I know just how hard this fight will be," said the New York senator.
Dismissing the inevitable Republican criticism, Clinton admonished the crowd. "I know my Republican opponents will try to equate health care for all Americans with government-run health care. Don't let them fool us again. This is not government-run."
A front-running contender for her party's nomination, Clinton drew criticism this time from fellow Democrats as well as Republicans.
"To ensure all Americans have affordable health care will take more than leadership that simply knows how to fight," said rival Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn.
Addressing a crowd at a medical center in the early voting state of Iowa, Clinton laid out her proposal, with the centerpiece a so-called "individual mandate," requiring everyone to have health insurance - just as most states require drivers to purchase auto insurance. Rival John Edwards has also offered a plan that includes an individual mandate, while the proposal outlined by Barack Obama does not.
Clinton's plan builds on the existing employer-based system of coverage. People who receive insurance through the workplace could continue to do so; businesses, in turn, would be required to offer insurance to employees, or contribute to a government-run pool that would help pay for those not covered. Clinton would also offer a tax subsidy to small businesses to help them afford the cost of providing coverage to their workers.
"I believe everyone - every man, woman and child - should have quality, affordable health care in America," said Clinton, vowing to accomplish the goal in her first term.
For individuals and families who are not covered by employers or whose employer-based coverage is inadequate, Clinton would offer expanded versions of two existing government programs: Medicare, and the health insurance plan currently offered to federal employees.
Consumers could choose between either government-run program, but aides stress that no new federal bureaucracy would be created under the Clinton plan.
Clinton proposed several specific measures to pay for her plan, including an end to some of the Bush-era tax cuts for people making more than $250,000 per year. Edwards has vowed to completely repeal the tax cuts for high earners to pay for the cost of his plan, estimated at $90 billion-$120 billion per year, while Obama would pay for his plan in part by letting the tax cuts expire in 2010.
Her speech came nearly 14 years after her first attempt at a universal healthcare plan that was highly criticized by Republicans as a socialized medical plan that eventually fell apart and left a stain on the former First Lady's record, reports CBS News reporter Fernando Suarez. Despite her failed attempt in 1993 Clinton assured the crowd of about 150 doctors, nurses and patients that she grew from her experience.
Aides say she has jettisoned the complexity and uncertainty of the last effort in favor of a plan that stresses simplicity, cost control and consumer choice.
In response, Obama said Clinton's plan is similar to one he proposed in the spring, "though my universal health care plan would go further in reducing the punishing cost of health care than any other proposal that's been offered in this campaign."
He took another swipe at the Clinton administration's closed-door sessions on health care in the 1990s, saying "the real key to passing any health care reform is the ability to bring people together in an open, transparent process that builds a broad consensus for change."
Other Democratic rivals were swift in their criticism.
Delaware Sen. Joe Biden said, "If universal health care plans could have gotten us health care, we would have gotten it a long time ago." Added John Edwards: "If you're going to negotiate universal health care with the same powerful interests that defeated it before, your proposal isn't a plan, it's a starting point."
Edwards said on his first day in office he will submit legislation that would pull health insurance for the president, members of Congress and all political appointees unless they pass universal health care within six months.
Republican Mitt Romney, in New York City for a fundraising stop, criticized Clinton's proposal, saying, "'Hillary care' continues to be bad medicine ... in her plan, we have Washington-managed health care. Fundamentally, she takes her inspiration from European bureaucracies."
The plan that Romney helped institute while governor of Massachusetts requires the same individual insurance mandate as Clinton's and uses state subsidies to help reduce the cost of private coverage. Since then, Romney has said he would leave it up to the states to decide whether they supported such a mandate.
Said Republican Rudy Giuliani's campaign: "Senator Clinton's latest health scheme includes more government mandates, expensive federal subsidies and more big bureaucracy - in short, prescription for an increase in wait times, a decrease in patient care and tax hikes to pay for it all."
There's already a system that provides that, better than government possbibly could: the free market.
***...in favor of a plan that stresses simplicity, cost control,,,***
You all remember when Hitlery, a few years ago, CONTROLLED THE COST of the companies which made the flu shots, don’t you? She controlled them so well, they went out of business, and there was an extreme shortage of flu shots that winter.
***Added John Edwards: “If you’re going to negotiate universal health care with the same powerful interests that defeated it before, your proposal isn’t a plan, it’s a starting point.”***
It IS a starting point for HItlery to take over our health care. She said, just after her socialist husband left the White House (in shambles) that she had learned that she had to start small, and grow big when it came to health care. She’s aiming to put us in the same hideous spot as England and Canada.
Hillary Rodham Klingon said “This is not government run health care on my planet”
This is not a health insurance program. It is a health services RATIONING plan.
You are only gonna get just so much in the way of health services, and when you have used up your year’s allotment, then you get on the list for NEXT year. ‘Cause that is how long until you get to see the doctor again.
The demand for health services is going to greatly exceed the capability of the single payer system to deliver those health services. There is simply no flexibility anywhere.
Think Cuba. Even Castro had to go outside the national network to find somebody who could take him ahead of his turn, and provide COMPETENT care.
This creature is the mouthpiece for evil personified.
She has absolutely no idea how to manage a country - her only success is raising personal money for her and her husband so they can feed their large egos.
The only thing they have going for them - ego.
There is nothing inside.
The honest and intelligent ones do not...but she’s not selling it to us...she’s pandering it to the masses as an entitlement so she’ll get votes.
She cares not that “mandated” healthcare goes against America’s core value of independence and self reliance...to her the state should be the supreme law, not the people.
Who pays for this? That’s the bottom line, as it always has been. She’ll soak those of us who are “wealthy”, namely the upper middle class, to provide for the worthless bums out there (Because some of us will have to give up something for the benefit of everyone, remember?)...and she’ll pander (BS Universal Healthcare) it to the working class as if it is a better deal for them then the healthcare they can either purchase on their own or get through their employer.
Essentially the cost will do what cost always does...hurt the economy by drying up jobs and put more people on the government take, which is exactly what every loser democrat like the Hildabeast wants...
I did a quick check on her web site, it doesn’t look too bad, if she’s telling the truth. You can keep private insurance, but uninsured get subsidies I think.
It also regulates insurance companies to prevent rejection (this happened to me). At least its not Castro care like Edwards or Kucinich.
Not government run? Laughable when you stop to consider the government will be there every step of the way to tell them who and what they must cover through legislation.
Exactly...it’s not government run...yet it’s going to cost the government 110 Billion a year? So what the government is going to toss the money over the fence and no congressional committee is going to be appointed as oversight? Her double speak is not only amazing but startleing in its brashness...
She really believes the electorate stupid enough to fall for her rhetoric...sad thing is...she may just be right about how gullible the sheeple are.
Take heart thought...my democrat relatives dont like her...said they wont vote for her in the primaries.
Lots of dems dont like her...only their crazy base does...so...even if the beast gets elected in the primaries and as her parties nominee, it’s doubtful she wins in the national election...
We will kill you with my health care plan. Plain and simple.
Quick Question...who pays for it?
Everything is by force with democrats. Force employers to pay for their employees. Very dictatorial of her thighness. How is she going to force the self employed? This will go nowhere.
I think that the reports that you provide to us really require the willing suspension of disbelief.”
I do hope you are either kidding, or are donning the newest and finest in flame retardant undies!
Okay fool me once...wait she never fooled me the first time, but come on fool the rest twice, shame on those dumbocracks.
I am taking a new medication today, it might be making me irrational.
This is who pays:
“She called for a requirement for businesses to obtain insurance for employees, and said the wealthy should pay higher taxes to help defray the cost for those less able to pay for it. She put the government’s cost at $110 billion a year.”
Ask yourself who are the wealthy to the Dumbocrats?
Do you actually think the plans cost is only going to be $110 Billion of year... is it capped?
She’s a marxist...and she’s using this to buy votes. She knows the legislation will not work...she doesnt care.
Pardon my ignorance but did she actually submit a “Plan” that we can read and see details? Or is this a “goal” with generalized key points and no clear “Plan” at all?
Realizing that merely saying She has a “plan” is sufficient to the sycophant media, but it would be fun to actually read this misguided Socialist death wish first hand.
“She put the government’s cost at $110 billion a year.”
That’s so absurdly low that just proposing it shows the woman is stupid.
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