The Democratic Candidates on the Issues: HEALTH CARE

http://www.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

Pros:

Everyone is required to have health insurance.
Cons:

What happens if they don't (sign themselves up for health insurance)?

Tax credits are great, but what about people who don't make enough to pay or file taxes?

Health care is still a for-profit enterprise, not a human right.
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/feature/healthcareplan/summary.aspx">Hillary is proposing the American Health Choices Plan, under which:

• Americans can keep their existing coverage or access the same menu of quality private insurance options that their Members of Congress receive through a new Health Choices Menu, established without any new bureaucracy as part of the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program (FEHBP). In addition to the broad array of private options that Americans can choose from, they will be offered the choice of a public plan option similar to Medicare.
• The new array of choices offered in the Menu will provide benefits at least as good as the typical plan offered to Members of Congress, which includes mental health parity and usually dental coverage.
  
• Working families will receive a refundable tax credit to help them afford high-quality health coverage. (The refundable tax credit will be designed to prevent premiums from exceeding a percentage of family income, while maintaining consumer price consciousness in choosing health plans.)
  
• A new health care tax credit for small businesses will provide an incentive for job-based coverage.
  
• Keep and streamline (maybe expand) Medicaid and CHIP

Pros:

Lets every American get in on FEHBP.

Lets everyone get in on a plan like Medicare.
Cons:

Tax credits are great, but what about people who don't make enough to pay or file taxes?

Health care is still a for-profit enterprise, not a human right.


http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/">Details of Obama's plan ensure that:

• No American can be turned away from any insurance plan because of illness or pre-existing conditions.
  
• The benefit package will be similar to that offered through Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), the plan members of Congress have. The plan will cover all essential medical services, including preventive, maternity and mental health care.
  
• Affordable premiums, co-pays and deductibles.
  
• Individuals and families who do not qualify for Medicaid or SCHIP but still need financial assistance will receive an income-related federal subsidy to buy into the new public plan or purchase a private health care plan.
  
• Participants in the new public plan and the National Health Insurance Exchange will be able to move from job to job without changing or jeopardizing their health care coverage.
  
• Participating insurance companies in the new public program will be required to report data to ensure that standards for quality, health information technology and administration are being met.
  
• The Obama plan will create a National Health Insurance Exchange to help individuals who wish to purchase a private insurance plan by acting as a "watchdog group." Rules and standards will be created for participating insurance plans to ensure fairness and to make individual coverage more affordable and accessible.
  
• Employers that do not offer or make a meaningful contribution to the cost of quality health coverage for their employees will be required to contribute a percentage of payroll toward the costs of the national plan. Small employers that meet certain revenue thresholds will be exempt.
  
• All children must have health care coverage. Young people up to age 25 to continue coverage through their parents' plans.
  
• Expand eligibility for the Medicaid and SCHIP programs and ensure that these programs continue to serve their critical safety net function.

Pros:

Lets every American get in on FEHBP.

Prevents insurance companies from denying coverage to people who can pay for it.

Federal subsidy to help obtain health care coverage for those just above the poverty line.

Forces businesses like Walmart to get their employees health insurance or pay a tax.
Cons:

No health care coverage requirement.

Health care is still a for-profit enterprise, not a human right.
So, who do you think has the best plan, and why?

What are the "innovative steps to contain health care costs" that he is proposing?

We wants businesses to be able to purchase insurance through them. I guess it would be something like a co-op for insurance.

and it sounds like a variation on AHPs. (But coming from Edwards I'm sure it's less business-friendly than the AHP versions currently being floated).

Thanks for a great, substantive post. I will try to come back to this thread later when I have more time.

Democrats borrow Nixon's Universal care plan

Mandates, requirements for "insurance", and not controlling costs? What kind of "universal" coverage is that?

It's a sad day when Nixon's 1974 plan is the basis for the health care platform for the DEMOCRATIC party's frontrunners.

More health "insurance" is not reform

See my other post to this thread.

(Please see the links I posted above, too)

It's another Nixonesque plan that assumes that "insurance", either provided by the private sector or the government, is going to ensure that everybody gets health care.

I work in social services, in a state that has a plan similar to what Clinton et. al. are proposing (it's called "MinnesotaCare", and it's very similar to what VT has). Despite the fact that we have near universal "insurance" coverage, we STILL have several tens of thousands of uninsured people.

Further subsidization of the insurance industry will not fix the problem.

Medicare and FEHB plans have the lowest administrative costs of any insurance plans in the country. The costs are controlled by taking out the health insurers profits. That's about a 10 to 15% decrease in costs before you get to the decrease that should happen when the risk is spread out among a much larger population of insured. And MinnesotaCare has almost nothing in common with Medicare and FEHB because it is provided by private payers making huge profits.

Like Nixon, Clinton said her plan "is not government-run. There will be no new bureaucracy."

This ignores the fact that there are some county-run hospitals that are well-run and are some of the best teaching hospitals in the nation. "Government-run" is only a negative thing when you have someone who doesn't believe in government running it.

That's a quote from noted conservative commentator P.J. O'Rourke, believe it or not.

There are a lot of very good community facilities that are better than their private counterparts. I've worked in the public and private sectors, and I've seen private sector bureaucracies that would make the government ones look like a ma-and-pa shop by comparison.

Clinton's plan is best. Insurance, particularly Medicare reimbursment is what I do for a living.

Edwards plan makes people enroll, which takes away too much choice. FEHB and Medicare are run by government rules, (although the administration of them is outsourced to private companies)and have the lowest administrative costs of ANY health insurance plan in the country (2-3% overhead versus 11 to 20% for private insurers). So her plan does take most of the admin costs out, which will result in immediate and huge savings as far as health care expenditures. Obama's plan is a band aid, and leaves private insurance companies making huge profits off the insured.

Fact is, health insurance company profits are the biggest reason people can't afford insurance and Clinton's plan addresses that specifically, whearas the others don't do that -- especially not Obama's plan.

I want in on FEHBP. But others might want in on Medicare.

They all keep (or expand) Medicaid and SCHIP. But that doesn't do any good if reimbursement rates are not increased. Many doctors are refusing to take on more Medicaid patients because the they get reimbursed at lower rates than private health insurance and the payments take forever to receive.

I like Obama's focus on accountability and getting coverage for those who may have "pre-existing" conditions.

But I still HATE the fact that all of these plans are nothing but a big gift to the health care insurance industry.

industry. Most people, based on costs to themselves, are likely to opt for govt administered programs like Medicare or FEHB plans.

why his plan is better. They don't actually know why they support him.

FEHBP happens to be private insurers who agree to insure public employees comparatively cheaply. You don't suppose the nice deal that congresscritters get has anything at all to do with the fact that they make laws that affect insurance companies, do you? :sarcasm:

Now, what does John or Jane Chronically Ill Person have to offer those companies by comparison? An extra buttload of profit-stealing expenses, that's what. So if a health plan forces said companies to actually take on sick people, what do you think will happen to the premiums? And then what happens to the people who might want to get in on the plan who can't afford the steeply increased premiums?

You can look at the total debacle in Massachussetts to get a clue about what is in store for people who can't afford the mandatory insurace.

:kick:

Edwards' plan isn't contingent on the mandate for it to work. Obama has said he would consider a mandate after the costs had been brought under control and all assistance was in place. The mandate aspect of both their plans are the same.

Obama's is best because it has actual subsidies, not a plan that waits for tax season to assist you. The Exchange also guarantees a basic set of benefits so people will never have to wonder whether they have coverage again, as well as fair prices and guaranteed acceptance. Obama regulates insurance companies, not people.

I guess Edwards just dropped out :(