Clinton "evasive when asked about how she would enforce the mandate in her own plan..."

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-dems26nov26,1,2257045.story?coll=la-politics-campaign

In other words, she has no friggin' clue. So much for her great health care plan.

I don't think it's a big deal for any of the candidates to avoid details since nobody's plan is going to get through exactly the way they're proposing it right now.

That pic looks like Steve Soto.

I don't have a favorite candidate yet. I'm fairly satisfied with the top three. None of them are perfect, but they'll do.

Oh, and the pic is me from a few years ago. I'll have to google Steve Soto now. :)

Bushie does when pushing his b.s., and shame them into passing effective legislation. She is wrong... I provide tax cuts.. That means nothing when the plan costs $12,000 a year for the family. I think that's about the number for poverty or something... Imaging making only $20,000 a year ... she is ridiculous. Dennis' plan is the best.. medicare is there... just give it to everyone and you pay for it out of your pay check.. I'm already paying for it and health insurance.. so I really wouldn't mind paying a bit more for one insurance that I actually benefit from.

less adversarial.

Look, I have a bachelor's in Poli Sci and a master's in Nursing. I do have some grasp of how complex universal health care will be (though I wouldn't call my self an expert by any means). No matter what policy we finally follow, it's going to have lots of costs and will create huge economic shifts. There will also be lots of unintended consequences. I have seen examples of single payer universal coverage (Canada is a good example) as well as multi-payer (private insurance) universal coverage (Switzerland). Both systems can work. Applying either to the US will be traumatic though.

What I'm trying to say is that this is a very complex issue that will require negotiation and a national dialogue.

hopefully, we see a trend where people are healthy because they are checked on a regular basis.... Besides healthcare, we need to impose tougher environmental controls on products, air, water, and soil (reducing the number of cancer patients), and we need to enact tougher guidelines on food. McDonald's should be the most expensive place to eat because of the negative health effects that their food imposes (these taxes could help pay for the medical costs). Seriously, a healthy salad, a cup full of berries, or a loaf of wheat bread should cost less than the breakfast burrito or the Super Size me Big Mac heart o'tack..

Add onto that real trade agreements that are good for workers and shorter work weeks to reduce stress and increase excercise and family time, you have a basis for a healthy life. There would be less need for all the drugs they push on us and less incidences of diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.

This is healthcare, and to not recognize the environmental triggers as well as the access to professionals is lunacy. You will have a broke system without implementing these changes. Its not going to be easy... and by-partisanship is not going to work... she or whoever is going to have to walk away from corporate interests completely and look out for the people.. She said she thought protecting America was an important job for the President, well that means protecting them from corporate interests... that means protecting their jobs, their sanity, their children's education, their health, and their overall wealth distribution (which is wholly inadequate). She also needs to protect the constitution and the Patriot Act does not do that...so, I'm not sure why she voted for it. She is not progressive enough. We need a President who is willing to move us into the next century and onto the New Deal Green Revolution. She cannot conduct business as usual and she cannot be by-partisan. She has got to be stronger than that rhetoric. I don't see her doing this. This country does not need 4 more years of diconnect and discontent... We need action and we need it fast.

I doubt she'll go as far as some people want, but then again I don't think we'll be having this kind of disconnect in the future. Not with any of the Democratic candidates anyway.

We are tired of the lies and people saying won't or can't to us. We can make this nation great. We can have healthcare, good products, safe and clean cities... we can do this. If they can't, they need to sit down. There will continue to be disconnect between the people if they continue to get the same business as usual... to me, she's giving the business as usual crap. She has a chance no other woman in history has ever had, and she's going to blow it by kissing corporate ass. She would be so far out in the lead if she planned to do things the way Kucinich is... She would be pushed way above these men if she said she was going to hold this former admin. accountable... but she won't-- how could she, her husband and Poppy are out golfing on a regular basis.

That's why people don't want to vote for her. Some are naively looking past these things for her. Listen.. in 2008, children who were born in 1990 and before November can vote. What do these children remember about the Clinton admin in the 90's? They don't understand that because of globalization and inadequate trade agreements, they will live a life with more work and less pay. They will have less than their parents.

To me, it my job as a citizen to look, listen and pay attention. There are many ways to decide on a candidate. You have their jobs before becoming a politician, their record, their policy, and their speaches. For people older, we have history and life experience on our side. It is our job to help these young voters understand who the candidates are and the real history of America (the stuff that wasn't in their Bush approved history books). We have a constitution unlike any other country. I say some angel or God himself must have been sitting on their shoulders to frame the wording so wisely (they may not have been so wise as to who was equal or not back then), but the guidelines have been established for us. It is my duty to look at the people who are asking us to represent us. It is my job to make sure the best person gets that job. It is my duty to make sure that the person representing me is going to work especially hard to protect my job, my home, my education, my children's education, my health, my community, my right to individual freedom... If they are interested in sitting down at the table with corporations, then, I am not interested in having them represent me. I want them as far away from the person representing me... By nature, a company will want to supress my freedom, cut corners, and make as much money as possible. And in that, they should not be in charge of my health... So, I'm not interested in Hillary. I don't want a President who will sit down at any company's table unless it is to say, you need to pay your employees more and ensure they have a pension to retire on.

I completely agree that businesses can be vast, corrupt, dangerous entities, but I don't think they all are. In fact, I think the majority are fairly good corporate citizens. I don't see anything wrong with giving business a seat at the table when deciding public policy. In many cases what's good for business is also good for the public at large. The problem comes when business is unrestrained through excessive de-regulation. This allows the Enrons of the world to proliferate. I believe most businesses also lose out when Enron's are allowed to happen. Look at all the companies that lost money from that debacle.

In that end, they will never just give people more money or more benefits, they will never impose safety standards that cost money.... etc. If they do not do as much as they possibly can to increase the profit margin and give more to the shareholders, then they are not doing their job as a company, and it is illegal not to run a business as shrewdly as all possible.

To me, they should not be involved at the table. Maybe they can get a seat at the kiddie table. When it is time for them to get a peice of pie, we the people, like responsible adults, will give them a slice, but not the whole damn thing.. and for too long they've been eating at the big table and they keep taking all the pie.. and damn-it, I'm tired of making their pie.

Subject: I def. don't think she's progressive enough.. She just doesn't get it
Message:
We are tired of the lies and people saying won't or can't to us. We can make this nation great. We can have healthcare, good products, safe and clean cities... we can do this. If they can't, they need to sit down. There will continue to be disconnect between the people if they continue to get the same business as usual... to me, she's giving the business as usual crap. She has a chance no other woman in history has ever had, and she's going to blow it by kissing corporate ass. She would be so far out in the lead if she planned to do things the way Kucinich is... She would be pushed way above these men if she said she was going to hold this former admin. accountable... but she won't-- how could she, her husband and Poppy are out golfing on a regular basis.

That's why people don't want to vote for her. Some are naively looking past these things for her. Listen.. in 2008, children who were born in 1990 and before November can vote. What do these children remember about the Clinton admin in the 90's? They don't understand that because of globalization and inadequate trade agreements, they will live a life with more work and less pay. They will have less than their parents.

To me, it my job as a citizen to look, listen and pay attention. There are many ways to decide on a candidate. You have their jobs before becoming a politician, their record, their policy, and their speaches. For people older, we have history and life experience on our side. It is our job to help these young voters understand who the candidates are and the real history of America (the stuff that wasn't in their Bush approved history books). We have a constitution unlike any other country. I say some angel or God himself must have been sitting on their shoulders to frame the wording so wisely (they may not have been so wise as to who was equal or not back then), but the guidelines have been established for us. It is my duty to look at the people who are asking us to represent us. It is my job to make sure the best person gets that job. It is my duty to make sure that the person representing me is going to work especially hard to protect my job, my home, my education, my children's education, my health, my community, my right to individual freedom... If they are interested in sitting down at the table with corporations, then, I am not interested in having them represent me. I want them as far away from the person representing me... By nature, a company will want to supress my freedom, cut corners, and make as much money as possible. And in that, they should not be in charge of my health... So, I'm not interested in Hillary. I don't want a President who will sit down at any company's table unless it is to say, you need to pay your employees more and ensure they have a pension to retire on.

Sen Clinton is absolutely correct. You've chosen to spin her intent into another one of your Hillary Hating fantasies!

So her plan is so much hot air. The lack of detail is shocking.

...before one of Hill's Shills showed up to claim that any criticism of the obvious faults in her plan was nothing more than "Hillary Hating."

Now, where have I heard that song before? Oh, I know! "The problem with Democrats is that they have no ideas; they're driven only by an irrational hatred of Bush." :eyes:

Second verse, same as the first...

She should make a law against mass-murder while she's at it-
that would help so much!

she deals in generalities, and her 1994 failure has spooked her, of course. She doesn't want to screw it up again.

If people can afford it, they'll buy it. Once we've gotten the trust of people on affordability and function, we can mandate the stragglers. But we'll never get a national plan if we start with a mandate. We could lose the election over it very easily.

She doesn't know how her mandate will be enforced. Obviously, she has not thought this thing out far enough! She said Congress will have ideas. Then why doesn't she have any on the topic?

This mandate could be a political suicide. The Reps are sure to ridicule it. And if Hillary can't come up with something more than mumbling something about Congress may have some good ideas, she is going to be eviscerated by the Reps on this issue in Fall.

And, too bad, many Dems running for Congress and Senate will suffer at the polls as a result too.

I thought Bush was your enemy.

And mandates aren't going to be popular. They are divisive.

...is that she'd propose a plan with mandates (so she can proclaim that she "took bold steps" to bring about universal health care), knowing that Congress will reject such a plan (so she can blame its failure on Those Evil Awful People Over There on Capitol Hill)?

Just the sort of progressive leadership I'm looking for in our next president. :sarcasm:

depend on what we can negotiate with Congress." I don't think reminding people of reality is "OMG NO CLUE."

That sounds like she has no friggin' clue to me.

"There are a number of solutions we are considering, and it depends on what we can get Congress to find acceptable," she actually meant, "Gee, I hadn't actually thought about my health care plan yet."

That sounds like you're trying to push something, rather than analyze it.

I'm sure I'm not the only one, either.

And since you know about as much as I do about her health plan at this point, any "analysis" would be purely subjective speculation.

...you might want to check out Massachusetts, where Mitt Romney instituted the only "individual mandate" plan currently operational. It isn't a pretty sight -- full support for health care is only available to those at or under the poverty line, those a percentage above that (up to three times the poverty line, I believe) have to pay a pro-rated amount of what remain large private premiums, everyone else has to pay full-boat...and, if you can't provide "proof of health insurance," you're going to eventually wind up having to pay additional taxes of up to half of what you were supposed to spend on insurance premiums.

What you're likely to see under a national "individual mandate" plan, as I understand is starting to spring up in Massachusetts, is insurance companies beginning to offer a lower-cost "basic plan" that does barely more than the minimum to provide proof of insurance. You pay the companies a sizable-but-lower premium, they allow you to prove that you're meeting the "individual mandate," but, if you get sick or injured...tough luck. Most of it will be coming out of your own pocket, if you have anything left there after paying for your legally-required health coverage.

How nice of Hillary to offer us Democrats the chance to make that our official plan as well! :grr:

That sounds awful...Hillary's plan sounds like a double-dipping sop to the insurance companies, which is not surprising given that she receives more insurance
industry PAC money than any other candidate. Ugh! And now Hillaryworlders are on a rampage to tear down Obama's more sensible plan in an effort to distract
from this thread. Typical.

She promises to make the Federal Employee health plan available to all. But at what cost? (Federal employees have large portions of the cost underwritten by their governmental employer -- portions that would not apply to non-federal employees.) On this matter, Hillary isn't saying.

She promises to create a Medicare-like system for everyone. But at what cost? (It's naive to think that it will be the same cost that seniors currently pay for Medicare -- which is already in trouble in terms of future funding.) Once again, Hillary isn't saying.

Finally, she promises to cap medical expenditures at a percentage of a person's annual income. But at what percentage? (It's one thing if it comes down to 1 or 2%; quite another if it's 25 or 33%, which, since it would be a legally-required expenditure, amounts to the equivalent of a huge tax increase.) Yet one more time, Hillary isn't saying.

Does the term "pig in a poke" come to mind...?

...and if Hillary can't answer them they are going to have a hey-day tearing her apart on this issue.

She already is viewed by many as being vague on the issues.

She comes up with some vague answer like maybe Congress will have a good idea....and the Rep candidate will be able to say "there you go again, Hillary...!""

It would not be a pretty sight.

I would suggest that Hillary do some thinking...NOW...about just what her plans are and what do they require, etc.

Good intentions won't help you in Fall.

:eyes:

couple of days.

Lessee: Edwards made much of his fortune as a consultant for the for-profit health industry. He promises the moon without any guarantees of success.

Obama has no clear plan...nothing so far but smoke and mirrors.

At least Hillary acknowledges the part that the Congress will have to play to get us any sort of health plan. This is the primary, not the GE. People tend to forget this right now.

Hillary backed healthcare many years ago. She was attacked unmercifully at that time by all the trolls and disrupters. Some of us remember.

Kucinich promises single payor national healthcare...but he in no way can get any congress to go along with him.

Hillary at least, presents it properly.

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But thanks for noticing, anyway.

You do like to pull things out of your ass, don't you?

Obama: "My plan doesn't have a mandate." When in fact Obama's plan has a mandate for children.

Does Obama ever NOT talk out both sides of his mouth?

Hillary at least shoots straight. It may not always be simplistic - like supporting Spitzer's license plan at the state level but not as national policy. It may not always be popular - like her IWR vote which was the correct vote and remains so. And it may be too general to pin down - like how exactly universal health care will be funded, which nobody really knows yet.

But at least she isn't saying different things to different people.

Obama is alot less than people have made him out. You can see it almost every time he opens his mouth when he's not delivering a scripted speech. Self-promoting and hypocritical, from broad campaign issues like being above throwing mud and such high-sounding rhetoric like bringing the two parties together, down to actual policy declaration like this healthcare mandate stuff. The reality is mud and attacking his own party for personal advantage, and his schitzo mandate positions.

'Evasive' doesn't even begin to describe Obama's positions. Contradictory, two-faced and dismissable at the drop of a perceived-advantage hat is what I see.

:rofl:

Obama doesn't have a universal mandate. So what. Using Mark Penn talking points to paint Obama's plan to cover all children as a "mandate"
is disingenuous.

Everything else you said is partisan nonsense. Blah, blah, blah.

I can respect that.

But what can you expect from someone who didn't read the NIE report before she voted to give Bush a blank check for preemptive war?

Withhold income taxes. Hmmm. doubt people would like that very much.

I think voters have caught on.

Hillary has a "Mandatory Private Insurance Plan"!

BIG difference, especially for Americans who Work for a Living!


"There are forces within the Democratic Party who want us to sound like kinder, gentler Republicans. I want us to compete for that great mass of voters that want a party that will stand up for working Americans, family farmers, and people who haven't felt the benefits of the economic upturn."---Paul Wellstone

and repeats it, word for word.

and repeats it, word for word.

lol

If you yourself took even 5 minutes to understand this issue, you'd learn that there are indeed a variety of ways to enforce a mandate. In fact, in California they are debating this right now.
http://calhealthreform.org/

It's an extremely complex issue: do you dock pay, forcing people without insurance to pay into a state fund - what kind of fund and what does it then do with the money? what % do you ask of employers who can't provide insurance for their workers? are there excemptions? etc.

If there are so many ways, why can't she pick even one to expound on even minutely?