After 14 years, Hillary still wants for-profit insurance in our health care.

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/feature/healthcareplan/americanhealthchoicesplan.pdf

Not only that, but she wants us to subsidize the insurance companies by paying their premiums through tax credits. How can anyone think that this woman is qualified to be president?

n/t

I want to believe it's teevee news watchers... but sadly, well just take a look around here.

*sigh*

think Hill would do better than anyone, save Al.

except for Kucinich and Gravel.

And Al Gore, who has come out in favor of single-payer.

every aspect of gov and our lives.


I agree, this is a start.

Drain the swamp of all of those parasites draining the life blood Of American government.

Do you think that the Congressional leadership could ever get behind such an idea?

for her plan, it's the pot calling the kettle black.

Obama saying you say forget it and thus his plan is not universal, and with Clinton and Edwards having little details that will move us to Medicare for all over time.

Why is it Clinton, Obama and Edwards supporters would rather trash each others candidates and point out why each of them should NOT be president, than to open their eyes to other candidates that have great ideas and less negative things about or reason against why they should be president? I understand the media doing it, they have an agenda that takes care of the corporations but why do Americans do it?

But, again, this is supposed to be Hillary's issue. She can't come up with anything better after thinking on it for 14 years? Pathetic.

http://johnedwards.com/issues/health-care/

The Edwards Plan achieves universal coverage by:

Requiring businesses and other employers to either cover their employees or help finance their health insurance.

Making insurance affordable by creating new tax credits, expanding Medicaid and SCHIP, reforming insurance laws, and taking innovative steps to contain health care costs.

Creating regional "Health Care Markets" to let every American share the bargaining power to purchase an affordable, high-quality health plan, increase choices among insurance plans, and cut costs for businesses offering insurance.

Once these steps have been taken, requiring all American residents to get insurance.

I hear people criticizing candidates from a very leftist position that suggest they should only find Dennis acceptable. And yet, they are usually supporters of one of the other candidates.

who isn't running but is still an important political figure around here.

Oh, come on! If he is not running on the issue, what good does it do. Yes, he can and probably will endorse another candidates campaign. Since all of them have endorsed one plan or the other it will be interesting!

I don't think that's a good idea.

Gore has in the past been opposed to single-payer.



If you have learned of a change in Gore's position on universal health care, please elaborate.

if you are a neocon or corporation.

income that you pay taxes on! If you are poor, you will not get any tax credits because you won't have any insurance that you have credited back! Sheesh.People are always touting "tax credits" with the assumption everyone makes enough money to find them useful!

Sad, isn't it?

Didn't she do a little work on this back in '93? I think I heard something about that. And, IIRC, the INSURANCE companies and their lying collaborators were pretty much responsible for crushing her plan and making her look like an incompetent fool.

So nice to know she's willing to let bygones be bygones. :grr:

the privatization of social security.

Send our tax dollars, via us, to the insurance companies...so that we all can be underinsured.

Universal health CARE, Hillary....not universal health INSURANCE.

no matter who is proposing it.

Only if it has mechanisms to prevent insurance companies from denying coverage and denying care will it work, at all, and then only as a transition as insurance companies finally seek to rid themselves of that segment of their business when it becomes unprofitable.

We can't afford to keep subsidizing insurance companies. They have been killing us.

She already had a taste of cutting the profiteers off at the wallet when she tried in 93. This is how you offer everyone insurance! Actually, there are many hard working Americans who are delighted with their current insurance program and would fight anything that cuts them off too!

I've met a few Senators and Congresspersons and Corporate Executives who are "delighted", but no one at the middle-class income level.

I've especially never met anyone who was so hot for their insurance company that they were willing to fight universal coverage in order to keep it.

as we post...............

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1827761

He wants single-payer, not mandatory private insurance.

From his OP:
"So to Hillary, I suggest to instead change it to a single payer system, remove the profit motive from the entire system, and pay for it by a tax on big business, rich folks, and with all the money you are going to save by ending this disgusting war, and end the subsidies on the oil and coal companies."

From his post #23:
"23. That is what I want.
Mandatory in the sense of forcing me to purchase health insurance from a profit driven company is not what I want.
Mandatory in the sense of taking the $500 per month I'm already paying in "employee contributions" and puting it into the tax revenue stream to pay for single payer health insurance with no profit motive for doctors, that's what I do want."

edit to add: Looking through that thread, it seems like a lot of people misunderstood his OP.

Pennsylvania Blue Cross. They've done well by me. My wife had a stroke and they paid out big. Gave her all the rehab she could use. I'm not sure a government program would have paid as much.

Assuming you still had the option to add additional coverage from private companies...?

choice too. Let the public and private systems compete. The best one will win.

I'm not against universal coverage. Its not only morally necessary, we'd get better health care too.

a year or two from now when your employer passes more of the premium costs on to you?

Or if you lose your job and have to pay for it yourself? Those plans can be very expensive. Those were the points Moore was trying to make in Sicko, IIRC. Things can change and the plan that was once good is no longer affordable.

I'd have the option of switching to a government system.

of snuck up on us. One day, you were going to your longtime doctor in his/her office - and the next a clinic with dozens of doctors and dozens of rules.

--is that they don't know jackshit about whether it is any good or not. The only way you are going to find out is to get expensively sick and have the claim approved or denied, and the vast majority of people will never be expensively sick.

Their opinions are utterly worthless--just like my opinion about whether my fire department is any good is worthless. I've heard tell that they're competent, but I really don't know, and if I'm really lucky, I'll never have to find out.

that this is the way to go. With the health insurance industry as entrenched as it is, the best way to get a plan that works is going to have to include it. I'd prefer single-payer, but it would never pass in Congress. We need something NOW, and this appears to be the best we can do.

republicans calling her a socialist and she won't be able to defend herself and stand the fuck up to these criminals??

HEY HILLARY! YOU WANT TO BE PRESIDENT?? THEN DO THE RIGHT FUCKING THING, DAMNIT!
(the right thing for the american people--not just for you!)

when it comes to progressive issues.

Too many on our side are willing to throw up their hands, give up, and settle for getting fucked up the ass some more.

:(

But I think this makes sense. If everyone is forced to pay for insurance through taxes, the cost will go down. If it is regulated more by government, they also might be able to bring down the costs. What's the alternative? Putting millions of people in the unemployment line? I really do not like supporting these slime bag insurance executives either, but at least the government could pick and choose the more reputable providers and thus weed out the worst ones.

But, when you're bought and paid-for by corporations, it sort of always works out that way, doesn't it?

TC

Hillary is facing a slime tsunami up until election day for doing this much. Imagine if everybody who is satisfied with their private insurance (which is most people) was told that they had to give it up and take part in an untested government plan. We'd have a revolt.

If Hillary succeeds in taking health care to the next step and it works out, people will be more likely to consider a single payer system. Until then its not a case of corporate whore-dome. Its common sense pragmatism and political survival.

Corporations are going to fight like they've never fought before against Hillary. She is not their stooge.

:patriot:

specifically. She knows, from experience with this one issue, the back and forth it takes to move an agenda forward from the House through the Senate to the White House.

*No* Democratic president, imo, will be able to mandate my favored approach - Medicare for all - and I'm OK with that. It is what it is and the political reality.

Social Security and Medicare were hard fought victories of the Democratic party that faced opposition from many sectors of America. They didn't get enacted overnight, and all were molded in the process necessary to get to enactment.

Progress still happens incrementally. Blanket all or nothing approaches do well to define the lines, but movement happens within them.

Another Corporate Ass-Kissing Nightmare. Forcing us as Slaves to pay Corporations
and what's next if you cannot afford to pay and so opt out? Prison?
Garnishing Wages so you go Homeless? :wtf:

And for whatever reason the Right WIng Media really wants her.

A friend of mine was saying that the thing they have to hang on the Clintons is the tainted Arkansas Prisoners' blood scandal

I mean, It takes a village of powerful women to make us think that we have somehow progressed over the years. Before it was just the guys implementing the mean and awful policy!!

Then what happens when you are sick??

If you stop working because you are sick (especially if self-employed) you are not gonna be able to
make the payments on your helath insurance. So at the very time you need it, you will be out of luck?
Or you'll have to do what people in that situation do now - scramble around and find out what agency they need to spend time dealing with to get the insurance paymetns covered??

Why is it that prisoners don't need to pay for health insurance, our COngress critteers don'tneed to, newly arrived immigrants don't need to - but to get what most of us in the middle class need - it is only possible to get it if we pay for it through the nose?? (And I am not implying that the afore mentioned groups shoul dhave thier ins. taken away)

Its a very common scenario, particularly for people who are self-employed, contractors, etc. There's no safety net.

Its the main reason why any employer based health care plan will fail.

To be fair, Hillary's plan offers something called "A Choice of a Public Plan Option" something that's like Medicare but not Medicare. But if you can't work, how do you pay for it?

She's playing Charlie Brown, the insurance companies are Lucy, and our health care is the football. This sucks.

:shrug:

applicants regardless of previous condition?

especially the ones who get theirs thru their employers - are satisfied with their insurance... until they are not.

And do you really think that images of FEMA in New Orleans, or image of the DOJ and DOD, not to mention whoever regulates the mortgage industry - generate confidence in any government-run program?

the goal of the Rethugs is exactly the opposite. Health care is almost the canonical example of something a government can do better than private industry.

I don't want the government making my shoes or my movies, and I don't want corporations taking profits off of sick people.

Like she says, there is "no possible governmental solution that does not include the insurance industry."

:hurts: - "FUCK NO!!!!"

them to jail if they bought food that week instead of health insurance? What about the pre-existing condition clauses that KILL Americans every year? She sold out, period!

How in the world is that going to help? If someone is making $10 an hour and can barely afford rent, utilities, food, etc., how does a tax credit help them buy health insurance?

Tax credits mean NOTHING when you don't make enough income to get taxed in the first place. My employer-provided health insurance is already taken out of my paycheck pre-tax. And still, my co-pays are so huge that one visit to the emergency room a year and a half ago took me until last month to pay off. I haven't dared go to a doctor since for a followup, because I couldn't bear to take on more debt.

As a single (widowed) mother working low-wage jobs for most of my adult life, I not only never made enough income to be taxed, I qualified for the "earned income credit" until my youngest graduated from college just this past spring.

So what will happen to other folks in my former position -- will they be forced to spend their "earned income credit" to buy health insurance?

sw

their income. If you choose to keep your present insurance you won't have to pay anything at all. You'll also have the option of giving up your current insurance and enrolling in a government plan.

who can barely afford to take care of themselves, let alone pay a monthly premium for health insurance. A tax credit won't help them.

Hillary's plan has some other options that may help these people, but we'll have to wait for all the details. My big concern is the items that help low income, working poor who are uninsured will get thrown out or bargained away in Congress. If that happens, her plan would still be an improvement, but wouldn't cover those who need it most.

A deduction wouldn't help, but a credit would. Unless I'm missing something. I'd still rather have single payer(not for profit) universal, but this is a big step.

can't wait until the end of the year to get their money back. Also, many working poor get earned income credits, which means they pay very little income tax to begin with, just so they can make ends meet. They don't have much in the way of taxes to get back.

Tax credits for health insurance usually are only helpful to wealthy people who need a tax shelter.

tables can be adjusted to get the money in their hands during the year. I'm not sure about the EITCs, and how those would be affected. I would hope that the legislation would take that into account.

Still, I know where you're coming from, and it's not my ideal solution, but I'd really like to move the ball.

That's why it isn't helpful.

companies? It's bullshit, and I totally resent it and I totally reject it.

I see no need to not simply make it Single Payer Universal Health Coverage.

Period.

We've probably all seen her picture on the cover of the June issue of Fortune magazine with the headline: "Business loves Hillary."

letting insurance companies continue to profit on healthcare changes anything.

I wish I could find it to re-post it here. I am talking about Massachusett's health reform system - which also is based on mandatory purchase of healthcare.It discussed an older couple without healthcare who would be forced to purchase a policy that cost $8,000 a year and had a $2,000 dedcutable before it kicked in!!!!

I do NOT call that affordable healthcare. This will be the same issue that will arise with Hillary's program and Edwards and Obama's.
Kucinich is the only one who gets it right.

Any "mainstream" candidate will keep the middle man gravy train going.