Bring It On! Election 2008

Senator Clinton unveiled her health care plan today. While I have not read the plan yet, the way they are selling it leaves me uninspired. According to CNN:

A Clinton adviser compares the plan’s so-called “individual mandate” — which requires everyone to have health insurance — to current rules in most states that require all drivers to purchase auto insurance, according to The Associated Press.

Under the plan, federal subsidies would be provided for those who are not able to afford insurance, and large businesses would be expected to provide or help pay for their employees’ insurance.

Clinton said her plan would not require small businesses to take part, but will offer tax credits to encourage them to do so.

The problem is that health insurance is not the same as auto insurance. If someone can’t drive because they can’t afford insurance, well they don’t exactly die do they? Has anyone been complaining about a crisis in auto insurance? Of course not because the rates haven’t gone through the roof in the last decade. Mandating that people have coverage and that large business es pay a large part of the premium does nothing to tackle the real problem - the incredible waste of money that is is the private health insurance system. It’s punishing American competitiveness and punishing workers who are still held hostage to corporate greed.

Sure her plan is offering the now fashionable tax credit for insurance idea to help families afford the cost of coverage. Great. So now we can have more money thrown into the coffers of United Health, Humana, Kaiser etc. What happens when they raise rates again? And again? And again? How does a tax credit deal with letting for-profit pencil-pushers decide on what treatment someone gets or doesn’t get? How is that better than “letting the government decide” (which is a lie anyhow) your health care? At least the government is accountable to the people - who are those guys accountable to? Stockholders?

I will read through the plan to see if it answers the real questions concerning the poor state of health care in this country. I doubt it. I’ve given up hope for real reform in this area from this candidate. It seems like more of the same and less than we need. We deserve better.

Universal coverage. Single payer. No leaches stealing the money in the middle. It works everywhere else. Why are we so resistant to a good idea?

This entry was posted on Monday, September 17th, 2007 at 2:05 pm and is filed under BIO, Hillary Clinton. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.