Dear HRC, JE and BO supporters: Is there any menaingful differences in their health care plans?

Each of theses three leaders has put out a health care plan. Each has similar provisions. There are, to be sure, differences, too.

But at this point in time, is there are **real** difference in them? I ask this with full realization that the best and biggest campaign season 'plan' must get through Congress to actually become and actual plan affecting actual people with actual benefits.

I've seen complaints that the plans are light on specificity. Given the realities outlined in the paragraph above, I can go with a 'duuuhh' as an answer. Just me the 'vision' part. The details will get worked out in the many compromises needed to get the 'vision' into a working law.

So, with that in mind ...... are there *meaningful* differences between the candidates' health care plans? If there are, what are they?

Note to Kucinich supporters .... since this is my thread, I ask that you not feel the need to answer or to even feel offended for not being included. His plan is the easiest for me to understand and the one I favor most (in an ideal sort of way) ..... "single payer healthcare for all". That plan would be the one I would be pushing were I running for president.

Here is a discussion:

In a crowded field, Edwards' health plan sets him apart by Rob Christensen

“What we have is a dysfunctional health-care system in the United States of America,” Edwards said at a recent Democratic presidential forum on health-care reform. “We need big, bold, dramatic change, not just small change.”

But what kind of plan is Edwards putting forward? Who would it help? Who would pay for it? And does it have any better chance of getting through Congress than the plan backed by the Clintons more than a decade ago?... Edwards is the only major candidate who has laid out a specific plan for making sure that everyone is insured. (Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, a Democratic presidential candidate, has proposed extending Medicare to cover everyone.)... The Edwards plan would require every American to have health insurance by 2012 - the last year of Edwards’ first term if he were elected. The plan would first make health care available to everyone and then require people to carry health insurance, just as motorists must have liability insurance.

The plan is a mix of public and private strategies. Employers would be required to either provide insurance to their employees through a company policy, or to help fund coverage for their workers by contributing to regional nonprofit government entities that Edwards calls health markets.... The health markets would use the economy of scale to negotiate affordable policies through insurers. Uninsured individuals could obtain coverage through a health market. So could employers seeking to provide group policies for their employees.... Health markets would offer traditional plans from private companies such as Blue Cross-Blue Shield, Aetna and Cigna, as well as a government-run plan similar to Medicare, the federal health-insurance program for the elderly. The public-sector plan would resemble Canada’s single-payer system, in which insurance is publicly funded to control costs but doctors and hospitals remain private.

“The idea is to determine whether Americans actually want a private insurer or whether they would rather have a government-run ... single-payer plan,” Edwards said. “We’ll find out over time where people go.” The mix of market and government initiatives makes Edwards’ plan much harder to attack than Clinton’s early 1990s plan, said Leif Wellington Haase of the Century Foundation, a liberal-leaning think tank. “In this plan, the changes happen much more gradually,” Haase said. “Each element has a market element that deflects the attack. I think it’s a very smart political document.”

Although Haase thinks the Edwards plan does not go far enough, conservatives fear it would take the country too far toward government-run care. “It sets up a slippery slope to move toward a single-payer, government-run health care system,” said Mike Tanner of the Cato Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank. “He realizes that Americans are not going to take that in one bite.” Tanner contends that under Edwards’ parallel system, private insurance would be unable to compete with a taxpayer-funded system. The single-payer system, Tanner argued, sounds good. But it would not be popular with citizens because it would ration treatment for expensive and long illnesses, and would discourage pharmaceutical companies from developing new drugs. “Single-payer systems are good if you are not sick,” Tanner said. “They provide routine care at low cost. But they don’t provide intensive, expensive medicine for people with serious illnesses.”

The whole discussion is well worth reading: HERE

Kucinich's plan is BY FAR the best. Edwards's is the closest to Kucinich's in that it has a pathway to a Kucinich-style single payer universal health care system. I don't see this in Hillary's or Obama's plans.

They all differ a bit on the strategy, but any of their supporters will point out how their candidate will get us on the road to single payer.

..... according to her supporters.

The notion is that her plan regulates part of the pharmasurance industry, setting them up for further regulation and then control. The notion is that she makes a government Medicare-like plan available. Given the existence of such a plan, it can be expected to grow and eventually take over all health care.

Her supporters argue that to show any overt hint that 'socialized medicine' is coming would have the plan derailed before it starts.

I am not one of her supporters and defer to them for a better explanation.

you cited: it will eventually lead to Medicare for all when the insurance companies no longer have sufficient market share to make it worth their while. I need to study the pharmaceutical industry's treatment more closely however in both JE's and HC's plans.

I am following and participating in several threads on this issue. There is another issue I wish to address: the morality of not doing SOMETHING about providing health care access to people who are currently suffering in our present system. It's "my way or the highway," and "if we don't get the perfect plan now then no deal" and that does nothing to relieve the suffering. I suspect that most of these "purists" are sitting pretty with their own health care. At this point, I think it is morally indefensible not to TRY a less than perfect plan that would probably lead to the ultimate goal of single payer universal health care (which of course would be my ideal too).

Also consider: if people like the health care plan they currently have, no way will a Kucinich plan appeal to them. Like it or not, many Americans are used to the "choice" they now have, it's just that fewer and fewer have ANY choice at all. AS a political strategy, then, we must not present these voters with a plan that may give them LESS than they currently have.

Just my 2 cents, here.

And I would give it up in a nanosecond for HR 676. While I have had no issues, this system has me one major illness away from bankruptcy. Can anyone truly say that they are immune from that?

DK's bill of course is the best way to go. My point is that there are Americans who are fearful that their health care will be "rationed." For instance, a former coworker said she would not be in favor of universal health care if her soccer playing son would not be able to have an MRI after an injury on the soccer field. That's something she has NOW and that's all she cares about.

The argument for me is that incremental improvement has worked in the past (Medicare and Medicaid don't cover everybody but some is better than none). Whereas a giant overhaul has gotten nowhere, even tho Presidents FDR, Truman, Kennedy and Nixon were ALL in favor of it. Why do you think that is?

AMERICAN HEALTH CHOICES PLAN

Hillary's American Health Choices Plan covers all Americans and improves health care by lowering costs and improving quality. It speaks to American values, American families, and American jobs.

It puts the consumer in the driver's seat by offering more choices and lowering costs. If you're one of the tens of million Americans without coverage or if you don't like the coverage you have, you will have a choice of plans to pick from and that coverage will be affordable. Of course, if you like the plan you have, you can keep it.


* Affordable: Unlike the current health system where insurance premiums send people into bankruptcy, the plan provides tax credits for working families to help them cover their costs. The tax credits will ensure that working families never have to pay more than a limited percentage of their income for health care.

* Available: No discrimination. The insurance companies can't deny you coverage if you have a pre-existing condition.

* Reliable: It's portable. If you change or lose your job, you keep your health care.


IT'S YOUR CHOICE:
If you have a plan you like, you keep it. If you want to change plans or aren't currently covered, you can choose from dozens of the same plans available to members of Congress, or you can opt into a public plan option like Medicare. And working families will get tax credits to help pay their premiums.

IT'S GOOD FOR SMALL BUSINESSES:
Small businesses are the engine of new job growth in the U.S. economy but face bigger challenges when it comes to providing health care for their employees. Hillary would give tax credits to small businesses that provide health care to their workers to help defray their coverage costs. This will make small businesses more competitive and help create good jobs with health benefits that will stay here in the US.

REINS IN INSURANCE COMPANIES
Insurance companies won't be able to deny you coverage or drop you because their computer model says you're not worth it. They will have to offer and renew coverage to anyone who applies and pays their premium. And like other things that you buy, they will have to compete for your business based on quality and price. Families will have the security of knowing that if they become ill or lose their jobs, they won't lose their coverage.

HILLARY CAN GET IT DONE
Nobody has worked harder or longer to improve health care than Hillary Clinton. From her time in Arkansas when she improved rural health care to her successful effort to create the SCHIP Children's Health Insurance program which now covers six million children, Hillary has the strength and experience to ensure that every man, woman and child in America has quality, affordable health care.



http://www.hillaryclinton.com/feature/healthcareplan/?sc=1353&utm_source=1353&utm_medium=

.. any other questions not instantly addressed in this brief summary can be addressed in her live discussion. Click the link to sign up if you have a question or just listen in if you're not clear on her proposal...

Good one!

We all enjoy meaty posts with lots to consider and endless references.

And how did you do that footnote thingie? I never saw that in a DU post before. Very Kewl.