Hillary's Plan = Gigantic Subsidy for HMO/Ins Industry. Shifts burden to Poor.

[K Gardner]

http://www.gp.org/press/pr_2007_09_24.shtml

WASHINGTON, DC -- Green Party leaders strongly criticized Sen. Hillary Clinton's health care reform plan, calling it a capitulation to private HMO and insurance corporations and an affront to Americans who lack adequate access to health care.

"Senator Clinton's $110-billion-per-year 'mandatory coverage' plan amounts to a gigantic subsidy for the HMO-insurance industry, while shifting the burden -- and the blame for lack of coverage -- onto people who desperately need health care," said John Battista, MD, former Green candidate for state representative in Connecticut and co-author of his state's single-payer legislation in 1999 (the Connecticut Health Care Security Act).

"As Michael Moore's documentary 'Sicko' showed, predatory insurance companies are the reason for America's health crisis, with 47 million uninsured and millions more whose coverage doesn't give them adequate treatment," added Dr. Battista. "Ms. Clinton's solution is to reward these companies for their greed, giving them more money. Ms. Clinton has been Congress's top recipient of money from the insurance industry http://www.opensecrets.org>>, which explains her dedication to corporate insurance and HMO profits."

.<snip>

[annie1]

1. the greenparty sucks for calling her out in the title, but everyone else out in the article. ??

[iconoclastic cat]

2. "Hillarycare" is a right-wing meme. Don't spread them. nt

[K Gardner]

4. Changed title, thanks :-)

[no name no slogan]

3. She stole it from NIXON

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

Why vote for a pale imitation, when you can vote for the REAL DEAL?


NIXON '08

[bunnies]

5. At least Nixons plan didnt have a mandate. nt

[Bitwit1234]

6. Closer to the election the more desperate the American Idoler Obamas are

I guess we really will see more bull than this....damn damn damn they are desperate I tell you...desperate....just watch what messages they have....

[K Gardner]

7. I'm not an Obama supporter. I'm just sick of the lies spread by your fellow HRC gang of

distortions and rumors. Just consider me HRC Opposition Party. Sorry you can't handle the truth.

[cyclezealot]

8. and it will still leave our employers uncompetitive

and the government subsidizing the health insurance lobby's incredible waste.

[RaleighNCDUer]

9. The most important sentence in the article.

"If progressive, pro-Single-Payer Democrats insist on supporting Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or other corporate Democrats in the 2008 race, then they will be complicit in keeping Single-Payer off the table for years to come," said Dr. McCabe.

These plans are not half-measures that can be fixed down the road. They are dams, and will block the movement toward single-payer healthcare for a generation. Meanwhile, the pharma/HMO/insurance company CEOs will continue to rake in hundreds of millions on the backs of America's ill.

[K Gardner]

10. Even among those of us who campaign for USP on a daily basis, we realize

it is going to take a massive human UPRISING for Congress to pass this. Its the unfortunate reality. I'm sick over it, but I can't be a one issue voter this year. Otherwise, I'd be voting for Kucinich :-)

[hayu_lol]

11. Hillary has already stated clearly that it would take...

more than one term to achieve single-payor universal coverage.

Lot has to happen to accomplish that including convincing congress to get the bills written and passed, the funding approved, and probably the Medicare mechanism brought up to speed.

At least she is thinking correctly.

[K Gardner]

12. Its not going to happen overnight. But the entire Ins Industry has to be brought down and

that's my concern. But yes, it will take time.

[RaleighNCDUer]

13. The problem is, if her plan is passed she will claim to have fixed

the problem and nothing more will happen for at least a generation.

When Britain went to universal healthcare it took 24 months. That's it. And that was before the advent of the computerized society.

Here, we have a framework already existant, in the medicare/medicade/VA/military/SCHIPS health systems - putting those under one roof would take the country a quarter of the way by itself. Putting her plan in place will entrench the insurance companies into the system, and the time spent putting private insurance INTO the system could be used far better in eliminating private insurance FROM the system.

As for the 'devastation' to be wreaked on the private insurance industry, a huge part of that work force could easily be moved into working for the system - and the remainder could go out and get real jobs. The costs of having the same jobs spread across a hundred private insurers would be eliminated. And those people could take their time at finding new employment knowing that if they fall ill in the meantime, they will be taken care of.

The only reason to claim it will take more than a single term is to protect herself for the re-election when, after one term, she's accomplished zilch.

[bvar22]

14. Hillary does NOT have a "Healthcare" plan.

Hillary has a Mandatory For Profit Health Insurance Plan that will do NOTHING to improve "HelathCare".

Hillary's Mandatory Health Insurance Plan moves AWAY from True SinglePayer Universal HealthCare.
Codifying and Subsidizing the For Profit Helath Insurance Industry will only further entrench this corrupt system, and will make if HARDER, if not IMPOSSIBLE, to move to a true Single Payer Not For Profit system.

America CAN DO BETTER!
It is NOT that difficult.
Simply expand MediCare to ALL Americans.






The Democratic Party is a BIG TENT, but there is NO ROOM for those
who advance the agenda of THE RICH (Corporate Owners) at the EXPENSE of LABOR and the POOR.

[HooptieWagon]

15. OK.. "Hillary's Mandatory Healthy Profits For Insurance Cos Plan"

...has an accurate ring to it-

[bvar22]

17. Word!

:thumbsup:

[demodonkey]

16. And expand Medicare to provide MEANINGFUL coverage, including longterm care for disabled of ANY age

Medicare doesn't cover nearly enough. For example 100 days of "skilled" healthcare only if needed. Nothing for long-term disability except the humiliating process of being stripped of everything you own and go on Medicaid which MAY pay to warehouse you in some hell-hole nursing home like a slab of meat in a bed -- until you finally die.

My mother is my only real family I have left because my only brother died in May at age 49 due to two concurrent infections he developed while in a nursing home for a broken shoulder.

My mother took a stroke in January 2006, while fighting for election integrity (she was getting plaintiffs on a lawsuit to fight electronic voting machines the evening before she took the stroke.)

On December 15 of this year, due to a vicious greed-driven nursing home throwing her out while she was "on leave" to travel to see a specialist, she ended up taking a seizure and breaking her hip.

Tonight, a hospital social worker called and left a message that she wants me to pick 5 nursing homes that are "acceptable" to us because the hospital wants to push her out the door while she is still sedated. A sedated person lying in ANY of the understaffed, uncaring nursing homes around here may as well just get a death sentence.

People who become disabled or need more time to heal than these PIG bean counters want to give them need CARE, not "insurance".

We need single-payer coverage like John Conyers' HR 676. The only thing insurance insures is that private corporations and their top brass get rich. AND NONE OF THE TOP THREE DEM CANDIDATES GET IT.

Some of these plans smack of the Help America Vote Act that handed 4 billion of our hard earned taxpayer dollars to companies like Diebold and ES&S for junk that loses our votes and thwarts the will of the people.

First HAVA to kill any semblance of democracy we have, next it's the murdering health "insurers".

We are a nation of barbarians. I'm sorry.