If you are a liberal or progressive you are probably for a single-payer system, but, like me, you might think that it will take a while to get there given our current system. Given that you might compromise by going for a system that can become single-payer. I think such a system would need:
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a public component. The reason I support a single-payer system is because I think it will be cheaper and better than the current system in the US and if a public component is available to everyone, this would be made more clear.
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it would need to streamline and improve the administrative end, because this would improve care and be step to reducing a part of healthcare that would be a much smaller part of a single-payer system.
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it should include as many people as possible, because that would allow the system to be more efficient and decrease the cost per person. It would also make the argument for single-payer easier: if everyone is in the system and the public component is better and cheaper then the argument for a move to single-payer would be easier (since it would reduce overall cost–a move to single-payer right now might reduce overall cost but it would be a harder argument because more people would be moving into the system).
If you look at Obama’s and Clinton’s healthcare proposals, they both work towards all three of these pieces but Clinton’s will try to bring everyone into the system. This is one of the main reasons I thought of voting for Clinton, but there isn’t that big of a difference and I liked Obama a bit better in other areas.
The issue became bigger for me when Obama started arguing from the right and put out a mailing that looks very much like the Harry and Louise ads from the 1990’s (really, go look). As a liberal, I found it to be very annoying and I expected the same for most liberals and progressives. If I was Clinton and wanted to connect with the liberal wing of the party, I would push this and she seems to be doing that to some extent. But the weird thing is this seems to be hurting her with liberal-progressives. I go to liberal sites and I see many supposed liberal-progressives argue that mandates are bad and that the ad is not a big deal (or even that Clinton is petty or worse for still talking about it). They argue that Clinton’s plan forces people to buy insurance even if they can’t afford it, but Clinton’s plan has more subsidies than Obama’s and they’re percent based (like here in MA– if you’re poor enough in MA you pay nothing for healthcare, I don’t see why the same couldn’t be built into a US plan). I don’t get it.
If I was a progressive who supports Obama (and I am), I would try to push him to change in terms of mandates and especially how he argues against them. Because in healthcare, if you’re a liberal you should think that Clinton has a better plan.
Laura Meckler has a good article on this here. Note the end bit:
Jacob Hacker, a political scientist at Yale University who advised both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama on their health plans, has said a mandate is important but its importance is being overstated. If the government works to automatically enroll people into a health-care system, he said, many will sign up even without a mandate.
Still, he said, Mrs. Clinton deserves credit for staking a position that is so politically risky. “A lot of things that the health-policy experts agree need to be done are ideas that, by themselves, are overwhelmingly not that popular and carry political risks.”
I thought Obama was the agent of change and risk. Well, not on healthcare.
Filed under: healthcare, politics | Tagged: healthcare, obama, politics
Obama’s plan ONLY mandates coverage for children, regardless of affordability. He has plans to ensure that each child is covered from birth, right in the hospital.
Can anyone tell me the gender of the vast majority of single parents? Oh, that’s right, most are WOMEN.
Obama’s plan is vague in implementation details (why does he set aside 10 Billion dollars a year for 5 years to implement improved Health Care technology, whereas Hillary’s sets aside 3 Billion a year on a one-time payment basis, subject to approval and assessment – until the technological standards are met?).
Obama’s plan doesn’t begin to define affordability. Obama’s plan avoids mutual responsibility. Obama’s plan is misleading in guaranteeing affordable health insurance for all, but failing to answer how affordability is defined, or what happens to those who don’t qualify for Medicaid or his vague “Federal subsidies”.
The lopsided logic of mandating coverage only for children falls flat, especially when those most affected by this mandate will be parents, the worst affected of which will presumably be single-income families, and single parents.
Again, the VAST MAJORITY of single parents are WOMEN. Obama is going to force an already vulnerable population to pay for coverage where their counterparts will continue to have choice in how their monthly household income is spent.
The only way universal health care can work is if everyone shares responsibility – especially and including Obama.
Obama’s heath care plan is a band-aid, thumb-in-the-dike “solution” wrapped in rhetoric.
[...] have waxed on about this in an earlier post here and commented on other blogs on the same subject (here & [...]