There has to be a better system than is now. Hillary's covers more but you are right to say that the author discounts Obama's as almost meaningless. While not covering as many people, it would encompus a lot more that there is now through the private sector. To me Obama or Hillary is not the issue, it is where we go with the various problems we have to tackle.
Iraq is one issue. We talk about a planned phaseout of troups there. I don't think that is going to be an option by the time of the elections. Bush is under negotiations there to assure troop presence in Iraq for the next ten years regardless of administration, to protect american business interests there.
ed
To: Dems2008@yahoogroups.com
From: citation502@yahoo.com
Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 04:40:36 +0000
Subject: [Dems2008] Re: Clinton, Obama, Insurance By PAUL KRUGMAN
__._,_.___Ed, thanks, useful. Except I think his ultimate conclusion (Obama means no insurance, Clinton means universal insurance) is not only unreliable forecasting, it is vasatly over-simplified, to the point of being worthless.
WHEN we elect either of these president, the outcome of expanded health insurance may not resemble either PROPOSAL identically, and what will emerge is what the president, the majority in a Democratic congress, and the leaders in both houses are able to get adopted.
Will either Clinton's or Obama's proposals be tweaked before final passage? Of course. Will the details evolve as the process goes forward? Of course. Do we need one or the other of these persons in the White House to make this happen? Yes, indeed.
--- In Dems2008@yahoogroups.com, "Edward Hochman" <eah01@...> wrote:
>
> February 4, 2008
> Op-Ed Columnist
> Clinton, Obama, Insurance
> By PAUL KRUGMAN
>
> The principal policy division between Hillary Clinton and Barack
> Obama involves health care. It's a division that can seem technical
> and obscure — and I've read many assertions that only the most
> wonkish care about the fine print of their proposals.
>
> But as I've tried to explain in previous columns, there really is a
> big difference between the candidates' approaches. And new research,
> just released, confirms what I've been saying: the difference between
> the plans could well be the difference between achieving universal
> health coverage — a key progressive goal — and falling far short.
>
> Specifically, new estimates say that a plan resembling Mrs. Clinton's
> would cover almost twice as many of those now uninsured as a plan
> resembling Mr. Obama's — at only slightly higher cost.
>
> Let's talk about how the plans compare.
>
> Both plans require that private insurers offer policies to everyone,
> regardless of medical history. Both also allow people to buy into
> government-offered insurance instead.
>
> And both plans seek to make insurance affordable to lower-income
> Americans. The Clinton plan is, however, more explicit about
> affordability, promising to limit insurance costs as a percentage of
> family income. And it also seems to include more funds for subsidies.
>
> But the big difference is mandates: the Clinton plan requires that
> everyone have insurance; the Obama plan doesn't.
>
> Mr. Obama claims that people will buy insurance if it becomes
> affordable. Unfortunately, the evidence says otherwise.
>
> After all, we already have programs that make health insurance free
> or very cheap to many low-income Americans, without requiring that
> they sign up. And many of those eligible fail, for whatever reason,
> to enroll.
>
> An Obama-type plan would also face the problem of healthy people who
> decide to take their chances or don't sign up until they develop
> medical problems, thereby raising premiums for everyone else. Mr.
> Obama, contradicting his earlier assertions that affordability is the
> only bar to coverage, is now talking about penalizing those who delay
> signing up — but it's not clear how this would work.
>
> So the Obama plan would leave more people uninsured than the Clinton
> plan. How big is the difference?
>
> To answer this question you need to make a detailed analysis of
> health care decisions. That's what Jonathan Gruber of M.I.T., one of
> America's leading health care economists, does in a new paper.
>
> Mr. Gruber finds that a plan without mandates, broadly resembling the
> Obama plan, would cover 23 million of those currently uninsured, at a
> taxpayer cost of $102 billion per year. An otherwise identical plan
> with mandates would cover 45 million of the uninsured — essentially
> everyone — at a taxpayer cost of $124 billion. Over all, the Obama-
> type plan would cost $4,400 per newly insured person, the Clinton-
> type plan only $2,700.
>
> That doesn't look like a trivial difference to me. One plan achieves
> more or less universal coverage; the other, although it costs more
> than 80 percent as much, covers only about half of those currently
> uninsured.
>
> As with any economic analysis, Mr. Gruber's results are only as good
> as his model. But they're consistent with the results of other
> analyses, such as a 2003 study, commissioned by the Robert Wood
> Johnson Foundation, that compared health reform plans and found that
> mandates made a big difference both to success in covering the
> uninsured and to cost-effectiveness.
>
> And that's why many health care experts like Mr. Gruber strongly
> support mandates.
>
> Now, some might argue that none of this matters, because the
> legislation presidents actually manage to get enacted often bears
> little resemblance to their campaign proposals. And there is, indeed,
> no guarantee that Mrs. Clinton would, if elected, be able to pass
> anything like her current health care plan.
>
> But while it's easy to see how the Clinton plan could end up being
> eviscerated, it's hard to see how the hole in the Obama plan can be
> repaired. Why? Because Mr. Obama's campaigning on the health care
> issue has sabotaged his own prospects.
>
> You see, the Obama campaign has demonized the idea of mandates — most
> recently in a scare-tactics mailer sent to voters that bears a
> striking resemblance to the "Harry and Louise" ads run by the
> insurance lobby in 1993, ads that helped undermine our last chance at
> getting universal health care.
>
> If Mr. Obama gets to the White House and tries to achieve universal
> coverage, he'll find that it can't be done without mandates — but if
> he tries to institute mandates, the enemies of reform will use his
> own words against him.
>
> If you combine the economic analysis with these political realities,
> here's what I think it says: If Mrs. Clinton gets the Democratic
> nomination, there is some chance — nobody knows how big — that we'll
> get universal health care in the next administration. If Mr. Obama
> gets the nomination, it just won't happen.
>
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