From today’s State House News Service — the increasingly bizarre health reform conversation:
…Gov. Deval Patrick on Thursday evening said Sen. Hillary Clinton’s health care plan is “remarkably similar” to rival Sen. Barack Obama’s, even though his lacks an individual mandate.
In one of their few overt policy differences, Obama has touted a health care plan without a mandate that would force individuals to purchase health insurance. Clinton’s plan has been compared to Massachusetts’s health care reform effort because of its reliance on a mandate for individuals to purchase insurance.
“I think the focus on the mandate as a difference is a difference without a distinction,” Patrick said during a brief Q&A after revving up Obama supporters at Boston University. “If it was all about a mandate then we could cure homelessness by ordering everybody to buy a house. A mandate all by itself doesn’t mean a thing. Everybody who’s worked on health reform here knows that.”
Earlier Thursday, House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi, an architect of the Massachusetts plan, panned Obama’s proposal, calling a mandate “an absolute necessity.” Drafters of the 2006 health insurance reform law agreed at the time that the key to its success was shared responsibility among individuals, employers and the government.
And meanwhile, Obama has put out a mailer sharply attacking Clinton’s plan on the issue of mandates. NY Times columnist (and big Obama basher) Krugman calls it reminiscent of the 1993 “Harry and Louise” ads, and the Clinton campaign agrees.
Correction: Universal and Less Expensive aren’t an oxymoron.
First off, Norma, a single payer system would be universal, better and less money – precisely because it wouldn’t allow HMOs to waste money and give shoddy service to reap more profits. So Universal and More Expensive aren’t an oxymoron.
Secondly, Obama and Hillary’s plans, to me, are very different in two respects: the individual mandate is less for people as it is for HMOs. In most states, they more or less refuse people coverage based on things like age, preexisting conditions, etc. A mandate would prevent them from doing so.
Secondly, Hillary’s plan includes a government option health insurance. Opening up that process could eventually lead to a single payer system, or something more akin to Germany’s system – which is far superior to ours. A government option would really introduce competition into the system, simply because it would be available to everyone, cheaper and maybe even better. However, we can’t have a government option system without mandating coverage, because if we did that then all the high risk people would take the government options, since HMOs wouldn’t accept them, while low risk people would either take the cheapest emergency plans or no insurance at all. Universal health insurance only works, as a system, if everyone’s in.
The so called healthcare reform is the meanest law I have ever lived through.When the State said we would get “affordable” health insurance I believed them,when they said “universal”healthcare I believed them.They cannot expect to give free insurance to half the uninsured and then expect the rest to pay for it.The mandate is nuts and so are they.Where are we suppose to get the money to pay for it?My mailbox is full of bills.
“I think the focus on the mandate as a difference is a difference without a distinction,” Patrick said during a brief Q&A after revving up Obama supporters at Boston University. “If it was all about a mandate then we could cure homelessness by ordering everybody to buy a house. A mandate all by itself doesn’t mean a thing. Everybody who’s worked on health reform here knows that.”
This is why Deval Patrick will be a one term governor!
“remarkably similar” ? “Shared responsibility” ?
My “responsibility” is to make sure that I (with only a catostrophic plan) will never make the public pay for my health care. I never have. Whether I do this with or without insurance is my business, and not that of Massachusetts socialists’.