No to Health care mandates, Obama says.

By JASON CLAYWORTH • DES MOINES REGISTER STAFF WRITER • November 24, 2007
Council Bluffs, Ia.

Health care insurance should not become a government mandate, Barack Obama said here today, referencing plans posed by John Edwards and Hillary Clinton.

Obama said such mandates for health care coverage is a wrong step. He told a crowd of about 350 people at Thomas Jefferson High School that his plan would lower costs on average by about $2,500 per family, making health care affordable for all without placing demands.

He compared Clinton and Edwards' proposed mandates to car insurance, noting that some sates with required auto insurance still have a pocket of 15 or more percent that still go without coverage even though it's illegal.

Their essential argument is the only way to get everybody covered is if the government forces you to buy health insurance. If you don't buy it, then you'll be penalized in some way, Obama said. What I have said repeatedly is that the reason people don't have health insurance isn't because they don't want it, it's because they can't afford it.

Obama, a U.S. senator from Illinois, has received criticism for his health care plan by those who assert that it is not truly a universal plan because it mandates coverage only for children.

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Obama's plan would require limiting the amount of profit health care businesses could make and prosecuting companies that monopolize the insurance industry. The result, he says, would mean health coverage for millions of uninsured Americans and an average premium reduction of $2,500 a year for families that already have coverage.

Obama said Saturday that his plan is the framework for getting to universal coverage, and additional steps would be taken if gaps were found.

If we see there are people who are still not covered when we make it affordable then we will figure out how to make sure that everybody's got coverage. Period. You can count on that, Obama said. But what I'm not going to do is pretend that by making everybody buy insurance that somehow they can afford it.

http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071124/NEWS/71124004

Envy is not a pretty thing.

:rofl:

lots of badmouthing other candidates for their corporate ties and allegiances but when its oprah and harpo INCORPORATED....all is well, because we all know how poor she is.

you can be snarky and personalize it if you like...maybe you should go on oprah/drphil and talk about it.

Msongs

to where she is by hard work and offering people what they want? She is one person endorsing a candidate she likes. I do the same, but the only people who listen to me are my family members. SHe has a larger audience. Her personal endorsement is not in the same class as a corporation giving money to a politician in the hope of getting a new tax break or less regulation, IMO.

she would have organized Harpo as a limited liability partnership :eyes:

Obama goes after the insurance companies, not the people being hurt by them. It also provides a guaranteed plan, and a subsidy to afford that plan, which is significantly different than a tax credit at the end of the year. I do not know why his people keep saying the plan is the same as Hillary's, when the differences are what makes Obama's significantly better to both poor people and the independent voter.




Obama's Plan to Cover the Uninsured. Obama will create a new national health plan to allow individuals without access to affordable insurance coverage to buy coverage similar to that available to members of Congress. The Obama plan will have the following features:

Guaranteed eligibility. No American will be turned away from any insurance plan because of illness or pre-existing conditions.
Comprehensive benefits. The benefit package will be similar to the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), and cover all essential medical services, including preventive, maternity and mental health care.
Affordable premiums, co-pays and deductibles.
Subsidies. Individuals who do not qualify for Medicaid or SCHIP but still need assistance will receive an income-related federal subsidy to buy into the new public plan or purchase a private health care plan.
Simplifying paperwork and reining in health costs.
Easy enrollment. The new public plan will be simple to enroll in and provide ready access to coverage.
Portability and choice. Participants in the new public plan and the National Health Insurance Exchange (see below) will be able to move from job to job without changing their health care coverage.
Quality and efficiency. Participating insurance companies will be required to collect and report data to ensure that standards for quality, health information technology and administration are being met.
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/

the devil is in the details

Read them.

BTW, I have subsidized insurance now. It would be nice if the coverage were better, but at least I can get medical care.

Expanding FEHBP with government subsidies has a few benefits:

1) It uses the existing infrastructure of health insurance and health care providers, so it'll be easier to sell than a single-payer system.

2) It would expand an existing plan, not require the invention of a completely new system.

3) It would remedy the existing problems (inaffordability, exclusions for pre-existing conditions).


I'm a member of FEHBP. It varies by geographic area, but I have a choice of about 20 plans...HMOs, PPOs, you name it. If a particular doctor is important to me, I can pick a plan that covers care under that doctor. A certain facility? Same thing. The plans differ from each other in small ways, so I get to choose the plan best suited to my individual medical needs.

and better than what anybody is proposing. I wish his campaign would understand how much better this is than what's come before.

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/

Edwards said about that. If you give them a seat at the table, they'll eat all the food.
Every other industrialized nation has universal health care and it works.

His is the only one that puts mandates on insurance companies, to require them to provide a base of coverage.

The seat at the table means they can meet the regulations Obama lines out, or get out all together. A seat at the table does not mean they get what they want.

Obama puts mandates on insurance companies. Edwards doesn't. I can see who is really fighting the special interests.

"it's time to let the drug and insurance industries know that while they'll get a seat at the table, they don't get to buy every chair."

-Barack Obama, Speech in Iowa City, IA, 5/27/07

they will start up a billion dollar propaganda and "lobbying" blitz designed to thwart it. If single payer is off the table, this is the only way you can get reforms done. With the approach of Edwards, Clinton, or Obama, they will need to work with health insurance companies. Single payer would be a lot better, but it would be a huge battle against very powerful entrenched interests in many states.

It's impossible. Even with Single Payer, you will be mandated to pay taxes on your income to pay for it. Obama either doesnt know what he's talking about, or he doesn't support UNIVERSAL health care

... when people who aren't covered don't get preventative care and go to emergency care to get treated for something that would have been a LOT less expensive had it been cared for with preventative care at the earlier stages of their ailments. And who foots the bill? Usually we the taxpayer do! How's it different?

By ensuring everyone has equal access to health care, we keep the costs down for keeping everyone healthy collectively by avoiding this.

Also, a good chunk of what is paid for by insurance companies in terms of costs are the bean counters trying to come up with ways to avoid covering some people. If it was mandated that everyone were covered, that cost would no longer be necessary. That's a LOT of the overhead that is in effect the difference between the inefficiency of our system versus other civilized countries' costs.

Ultimately, this is another chunk of what is needed to correct the growing wealth gap between haves and have nots. Those that benefit from their company ownerships/jobs/stock investments from a HEALTHY workforce should pay more into the system if the government foots the bill that helps them get more of the profits than the rest of us.

Now ultimately people should only pay a certain portion of their income that is affordable towards health care (either through taxes or through insurance payments). Most of us would prefer the former, as it then gives the government more control over ensuring that a certain level of income can have a living family wage based on how much taxes they pay vs. how much they take home.

I don't understand how your response answers my question

... and that everyone will pay in a regressive fashion more taxes to have adequate health care for all.

By having it paid for by taxes, we can make it a more progressive formula. As my post indicates, people wouldn't have to be paying for the thousands of dollars it might cost for a hospital stay for an operation in their taxes. Nor would they even necessarily get an equivalent raise in their taxes to what they and their company pay for health insurance now. It would be based on their ability to pay how much they pay as a portion of their taxes.

Other countries like the U.K. and France do it. Why can't we?

Edit: At first it appeared you were concerned that mandated health care would raise people's taxes a lot. In rereading your message though, perhaps I misinterpreted your meaning. Perhaps we are saying the same thing? Yes, it will cost more for people in taxes collectively when the government pays for it instead of insurance companies, but a progressive burden like the way income taxes work will hopefully ensure that people aren't paying collectively more taxes than it would have cost them before to get health insurance combined with their tax expenses, to bring it down to a point where they no longer have to worry about it strapping them on whatever salary they might have.

But yes, I do agree that Hillary's tax deduction to fund things is a silly proposition as it does nothing for those that don't pay taxes, etc. Health care in effect needs to be a guaranteed service everyone gets from our government (to provide for our "welfare").

I have no idea why you would think that I made such an assumption. I merely pointed out that in order to be UNIVERSAL, a plan will have to have a mandate of some sort. I made no judgements and stated no opinions as to the relative merits of single payer or any other form of funding UNIVERSAL health care.

Yes, I agree that there needs to be a mandate for coverage. I think I misread your original post that you might be thinking there would be a mandated "cost" in the form of taxes that would be a problematic burden on the taxpayer. I don't think you in fact were saying that after rereading your posts. It sounds like we're roughly on the same page.

I do not want something like a mandated payment for people that is offset by some form of tax deduction. That won't work. Mandated auto insurance can work, since one arguably can say that driving is a privilege and not really a right (as we have options other than driving a car to move around should we pursue them, unlike health care, where we really have to have certain kinds of health care to live which in my mind is a right, not a privilege).

The middle class will get a tax reduction. The poor will get free coverage and the working poor will get subsidized coverage (ie lower premiums) and tax credits.

country than those countries with universal health care.
Medicare costs a fraction of what it costs private insurance companies to administer care.

And yes, I've read it, from start to finish. More platitudes and warm fuzzies from the "inspirational speaker" candidate.

From the Obama plan:

"The Obama plan both builds upon and improves our current insurance system, upon which most Americans continue to rely, and leaves Medicare intact for older and disabled Americans."

Translation: Nothing will significantly change.

Changing the subject to "mandates" is a cheap distraction.

He is not offering UNIVERSAL health care so he's trying to make it seem like he's doing the "nice" thing and not forcing anyone to do anything, as if we can get from here to there without anything changing

who oppose universal health care, when the reason they oppose it is they don't understand it. Big Pharma has convinced many that people in France wait days and months for care .. not true. Can an American get an appointment the same day with his doctor? In France doctors make house calls.

When this discussion takes place we all need to look back to the time that the brilliant lawyer and Wellesley grad wen into the back room with Mr. Magaziner and came out with the tablets on which were written the right program for America's health. Her way or no way. And she got smashed.
She got smashed because of her outstanding character flaw, hubris.

We have perhaps for all time lost the opportunity to have single payer insurance paid for by tax revenues because of Hillary's hubris.

Those who have subsequently come forward to propose plans know that they have a tent with a very large elephant called the insurance industry to deal wit. It's Hillary's elephant. She screwed it up. PERIOD. She screwed it up.

Kucinich is right, of course, but the world we live in is not the amusing one in his head and mine: it includes a lot of awfully bad people, several good, and many well-meaning. The people who will take the reigns of governemtn (it does sound like a runaway coach, does it not?) wil have to make something work. Which means, like it or not, finding enough at the trough for all those who will attend this wonderful opportunity called ill-health.

So thanks, Hillary. And pass on my thanks to Bill who sold the US downriver with his friend Rubin, and sent Sandy Weil and all the other bankers into the world to sell whatever they wanted and which action is now coming back to but us on our mortgaged bums.

between private insurance and single payer. Once people saw how superior the single payer is, they'd happily desert the private insurance companies.

EVERYONE would have healthcare and it would be paid for by an increase in taxes somewhere. You can't force people to purchase insurance they can't afford. Take the billions in profit out of it all and it would work. Of course the magic word is "taxes." All politicians cringe at the notion and the Republicans are too stupid or stubborn to realize if they weren't ponying up $12,000 a year for premiums and were paying $3,000 more in taxes they'd have $9,000 left in their pockets.

just think of the millions of dollars from all their profits - healthcare for all!:evilgrin:

I think Obama is the most realistic

the second is social security being a crisis. Its not. He may be my third or fourth choice right now.

in Illinois under republican control and was able to get those under 18 without coverage and to reform it, I'd say he is well versed in the issue and more than capable of getting it done as a president.
that is more than anyone else has been able to do.

The only proposal out there that gets 100% coverage is Dennis' Medicare for All (HR 676), the Universal Single-Payer Not-for-Profit Health Care plan co-authored with John Conyers (which has over 80 co-sponsors in the House). All the others have gaps. The rest of the candidates should get on board, as should the whole of the Democratic Party. Medicare for All (or whatever one will want to call it) is a winning issue.