Where do Obama and Clinton REALLY stand on healthcare?
One really crucial difference between Obama and Clinton’s plans that I haven’t seen much discussion of here or elsewhere is that Obama’s plan, unlike Clinton’s, also establishes a new national health care plan as an alternative to the plans offered by private health-care plan providers. Clinton’s proposal doesn’t appear to offer any comprehensive public health-care plan as an alternative to the private health care plan providers, while Obama’s plan does offer a new option (his own statements on this issue suggest he would establish a national plan with benefits like those currently enjoyed by congress). I’m not sure why this difference, which to me seems pretty stark, doesn’t come up more often in discussions about the differences in the two-candidates’ proposals. It’s a pretty major difference. Now I may be mistaken in my understanding that Clinton’s plan doesn’t offer something analogous to Obama’s proposed national plan, but I’m confident about what Obama’s proposing. Here’s his sit
Which does suggest the Clinton plan also at least pays lip-service to establishing a public health care provider option (although she’s put a lot less emphasis on that aspect of her proposal, and it almost seems like an afterthought to me–my guess is that any public plan under Clinton will be so inadequate, most users will opt for one of the private plans). Um, that’s complete crap. Obama originally didn’t even make his public option available to everyone, only to people who couldn’t get insurance otherwise (the unemployed, self-employed, and those whose employers didn’t offer health insurance) but quietly reversed himself a few weeks later after opposition, just as he’s now quietly reversing himself on the mandate issue. The emphasis in Obama’s plan is on establishing a robust public health care system and offering it as a competitor to the private provider plans. Clinton’s plan, on the other hand, is much more private health care provider centric. Again, you have it backwards. Obama
Um, that’s complete crap. Thanks for that shining moment of brilliance! I’ll have to revisit all my original assumptions and reexamine my whole argument now. Good work! Again, you have it backwards. Obama requires that all the private plans offered in his big exchange be at least as generous as the public plan. In other words, the public plan will be the worst one offered on the exchange. Hillary, on the other hand, does the opposite: she guarantees that her public plan will have benefits at least equal to those offered by private companies under the FEHBP. More of that really helpful tone! But I’m afraid, this time, you’ve got it completely orthogonal! Your last point is pretty much moot. From my POV, the point in Obama’s proposal is to emphasize the role of the public plan as a competitor to the private plans. And despite what you say, I can’t find anything in Clinton’s proposal that guarantees benefits at least equal to those offered by the private plans. Her proposal does claim the
