I Am Not a Health Reform

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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/15/opinion/15woolhandler.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

By DAVID U. HIMMELSTEIN and STEFFIE WOOLHANDLER
Published: December 15, 2007
Cambridge, Mass.

"IN 1971, President Nixon sought to forestall single-payer national health insurance by proposing an alternative. He wanted to combine a mandate, which would require that employers cover their workers, with a Medicaid-like program for poor families, which all Americans would be able to join by paying sliding-scale premiums based on their income.

Nixon’s plan, though never passed, refuses to stay dead. Now Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama all propose Nixon-like reforms. Their plans resemble measures that were passed and then failed in several states over the past two decades...


As governor, Mitt Romney tweaked the Nixon formula in 2006 when he helped devise a second round of Massachusetts health care reform: employers in the state that do not offer health coverage face only paltry fines, but fines on uninsured individuals will escalate to about $2,000 in 2008. On signing the bill, Mr. Romney declared, “Every uninsured citizen in Massachusetts will soon have affordable health insurance.” Yet even under threat of fines, only 7 percent of the 244,000 uninsured people in the state who are required to buy unsubsidized coverage had signed up by Dec. 1. Few can afford the sky-high premiums...

With the exception of Dennis Kucinich, the Democratic presidential hopefuls sidestep an inconvenient truth: only a single-payer system of national health care can save what we estimate is the $350 billion wasted annually on medical bureaucracy and redirect those funds to expanded coverage. Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Edwards and Mr. Obama tout cost savings through computerization and improved care management, but Congressional Budget Office studies have found no evidence for these claims..."

[slipslidingaway]

1. "This health care debate is one of the biggest frauds that has

been put on the American people...this is one of those fault lines in the Democratic Party...our party really is not legit on the issue of health care...whenever you talk to these candidates there is always a role for the for profit insurance companies....this is a fight inside the Democratic Party..."

Health Care
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOB0f3I1AXk

2:41 minutes

[madrchsod]

2. the top three health care plans are cruel jokes

to those who need health care and can least afford it. it is a subsidy to the insurance companies and does nothing to reduce the cost of healthcare

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3. Too many people doing without, yes & not interested in adding to

the bottom line of the insurers :(

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5. I have subsidized health insurance

It's $50 a month. I don't care who gets rich off the plan. I get to see a doctor and I get medical tests and don't have to worry about ER bills if I think I'm having a heart attack. It could certainly be better and there's no doubt that it wouldn't keep me from bankruptcy, but at least I won't get turned away in an emergency for not having a stupid insurance card.

[sandnsea]

4. A sliding scale to join Medicaid???

Is there anybody who would seriously reject that today?

:shrug:

I can't understand these people who will leave people out there with no health care and criticize the ability to buy into Medicaid. Medicaid is better than Medicare, or at least it was until Clinton let states reduce benefits to adults.

We could have ALL had access to Medicaid for over 30 years. And Democrats said no. That's just crazy.

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6. I do not know the history of the Nixon Plan...

but I do believe many will be left out in the coming years without some bold changes.

:(

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7. ...

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8. Democrats' health plans echo Nixon's failed GOP proposal

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/22163.html

"Nixon introduced his Comprehensive Health Insurance Act on Feb. 6, 1974, days after he used what would be his final State of the Union address to call for universal access to health insurance...

Fast-forward 33 years to the American Health Choices Plan, which Clinton outlined Sept. 17, and to similar plans by Democratic rivals Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina...

Nixon's plan didn't require all Americans to purchase health insurance, as Clinton's does, something that's known in health-care parlance as an individual mandate. Clinton's rival Edwards also favors government-mandated purchases of health care. Obama would mandate only that all children be insured...

Despite the heated politics of Watergate, national health-care legislation was proceeding in Congress thanks to a compromise brokered by a young Democratic senator from Massachusetts, Edward Kennedy, a Nixon nemesis...


The rest was, as they say, history."

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9. Video... National Health Insurance Debate Under Nixon

Clips from 1971 and 1974 with Senator Kennedy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGKkPEvD2OM

7:11 minutes