Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., speaks about health care, Monday, Sept. 17, 2007 in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
by Rick Pearson
DES MOINES, Iowa—Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton unveiled her plan for affordable health care on Monday, revisiting an issue that she says she’s learned from since her plan for universal coverage collapsed during her tenure as First Lady in the early 1990s.
After a quick visit to Chicago to encourage support from the Laborers International Union, the New York senator traveled to Des Moines to unveil a plan that would mandate that all Americans have health insurance coverage either from their employer or through federal tax credits.
“We can no longer tolerate the injustice of a system that shuts out nearly one-in-six Americans,” Clinton told an audience at the publicly funded Broadlawns Medical Center. “Ultimately, this is about who we are as a people and who we stand for.”Plans for universal health care are a virtual requirement for the Democratic contenders for president. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois has his plan, which would not mandate health-care coverage, while former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina has a plan that would require coverage.
Clinton said she still had the “scars” from her previous effort toward expanded health care coverage but also said she had “learned some valuable lessons” from the experience to shape the proposal she was now offering.
And she warned voters not to listen to an anticipated round of criticism from Republicans—who derided her previous attempts at “Hillarycare”—who will attack her new plan as government-run health care. She contended her proposal would not create any new government bureaucracy and was “simpler yet still bold” that her failed plan from 1994.
Clinton said people satisfied with their current health care coverage could keep it and, she said, they would likely see lower premiums result from the rest of her “American Health Choices Plan,” which would also offer businesses, workers and the uninsured the option of buying coverage through the federal employee health benefit plan that provides insurance equivalent to members of Congress.
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“Essentially the Congressional health care plan becomes the American health care plan,” she said.
The new proposal would not allow insurance companies to deny coverage to anyone who applies and pays their premium regardless of pre-existing conditions. Insurers also would have to standardize premiums so they couldn’t charge more based on age, gender or occupation.
Large employers would be required to offer health insurance or help pay the cost of coverage. It also would provide tax assistance for small business to provide coverage and give tax credits to lower income individuals to purchase insurance.
Cost of her program is $110 billion which she said would be made up through savings, modernization of technology, constraining prescription drug costs and through discontinuing the president’s tax breaks for households making more than $250,000 and employer tax breaks for health benefits for families earning more than $250,000.