Saturday, April 19, 2008

Health insurance

Paul Krugman has tirelessly pointed out that Hillary Clinton's health care plan is closer to the ideal of universal care, while Obama's will leave millions tossed into the cold. Now, Mr. Unity has launched attack ads in Pennsylvania which create exactly the opposite impression.

On MSNBC, the bots respond as programmed, screaming "THE ENEMY OF CHANGE IN AMERICA IS CLINTON" and such. For sheer reality-contempt, this response is classic:
No wonder Hillary's health care package from the 90's did not pass. Then again, maybe Hillary doesn't care if other people who do not make millions of dollars can't afford health insurance.
Damn her for trying in the 1990s! Obviously, she did that only because she hates poor people.

Oddly enough, Elizabeth Edwards agrees that Hillary's plan is better. I wonder when the Kos Krew will start going after the Edwardses?

Bill Clinton -- yes, the notorious head of the Clinton/Bush crime family, the man who presided over the Nightmare Years of the 1990s -- had this response:
Hillary's being subject to a television ad that has been roundly criticized in the form of mass mailings all across this country saying she's trying to make you buy insurance you can't afford and you're gonna be fined and all that. It isn't true. It is not true.... Every expert who has looked at this says if you provide the subsidies and you cap somebody's income, everybody'll be able to afford it, it'll be cheaper than anything you're buying now if you buying it. But I'm just telling you, we won't get control of cost unless we cover everybody. Doing the morally right thing is the economically essential thing.
Of course, people like Paul Krugman, Elizabeth Edwards and Bill Clinton are no longer Democrats, according to the progs.

2 comments:

Charles D said...

Hillary and Barack make essentially the same mistake on health care policy, and it is likely to achieve the same result in 2009 (if one of them is elected) as it did in 1993.

Any attempt to rein in health care costs or cover all or nearly all Americans will be fought tooth and nail by the drug, insurance and for-profit health care industries. Given their clout in the corrupt Congress, they are likely to defeat any plan that is not obvious, simple, and undoubtedly covers every American.

As in 1993, both the Clinton II and Obama plans are complicated Rube Goldberg plans that bend into pretzels to try to assuage the fears of the very industries that are going to oppose any plan. Ordinary Americans won't understand these plans and their complicated funding mechanisms and administrative schemes. They won't be clear that they will be covered by the plans, so they won't push their representatives to support the plan. Ergo, defeat again.

There's really not enough difference between these two unrealistic plans to argue about. Neither will work because neither will be enacted.

Joseph Cannon said...

DL, you may be right. A few points:

1 An outright socialized insurance scheme, thought preferable in my eyes, would never be acceptable to Congress. Krugman argues that the Clinton or Edwards plans would eventually segue into someting close to that ideal.

2. If Obama were elected, and if he failed in his health care proposals, progressives would blame his opponents. In the 1990s, progressives blamed Clinton.

In fact, to hear the way some progs talk, in 1993 Congress had proposed this wonderful socialized medicine scheme, which the Evil Clintons maliciously squashed.