Obama plans universal health care

[Lord Zentei]

Obama would tax wealthy to pay for universal health care

POSTED: 5:03 p.m. EDT, May 29, 2007

• Sen. Obama says health care plan would cost between $50 and $65 billion
• Illinois Democrat says plan can be paid for by eliminating tax cuts for wealthy
• System would maintain private insurance but add public funds

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) -- Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama on Tuesday offered a plan to provide health care to millions of Americans and more affordable medical insurance, financed in part by tax increases on the wealthy.

Bemoaning a health care "cost crisis," Obama said it was unacceptable that 47 million in the country are uninsured while others are struggling to pay their medical bills. He said the time is ripe for reforming the health care system despite an inability to do so in the past, most notably when rival Hillary Rodham Clinton pursued major changes during her husband's presidency.

"We can do this," Obama said in a speech in Iowa City at the University of Iowa's medical school. "The climate is far different than it was the last time we tried this in the early nineties."

Obama's plan retains the private insurance system but injects additional money to pay for expanding coverage. Those who can't afford coverage would get a subsidy on a sliding scale depending on their income, and virtually all businesses would have to share in the cost of coverage for their workers.

Obama didn't mention that his plan would cost the federal treasury an estimated $50 billion to $65 billion a year once fully implemented. That information was provided in a memo written by three outside experts and distributed by the campaign after his speech.

The experts also said Obama could pay for his plan mostly through steps that the candidate has already said he would take -- allowing President Bush's tax cuts on dividends and capital gains and on those making more than about $250,000 a year to expire in 2010 instead of acting to make them permanent.

The rest of the $65 billion funding could come by raising taxes on inheritances worth more than $7 million. Many Democrats want to repeal Bush's elimination of taxes on estates worth more than $1 million. Obama wants the exemption to be higher but has not yet said exactly where it should be set.

Obama's proposal would spend more money boosting technology in the health industry such as electronic record-keeping. His package would prohibit insurance companies from refusing coverage because of pre-existing conditions. It would also create a National Health Insurance Exchange to monitor insurance companies and limit their profits. Obama said the typical consumer would save $2,500 a year on premiums.

Obama's first promise as a presidential candidate was that he would sign a universal health care plan into law by the end of his firm term in the White House. But there is some dispute over whether his plan would provide universal care -- it's aimed at lowering costs so all Americans can afford insurance, but does not guarantee everyone would buy it.

"It's not totally clear that it would result in universal coverage," said Ron Pollack, executive director of the advocacy group Families USA. He praised Obama and other leading Democratic candidates for focusing on improving health care.

"What makes it a top national priority now is not simply a sense of sympathy for people who are uninsured but a sense of fear that the coverage that used to be taken for granted can no longer be taken for granted," he said.

Obama aides said they believe that everyone would buy health insurance if it were affordable enough, achieving universal care. If some Americans are still uninsured after a few years into the plan, Obama would reconsider how to get to 100 percent, the advisers said.

That's where he differs with Democratic rival John Edwards, the only other candidate who has laid out a specific plan. Edwards eventually would require every American to get health insurance, much like state requirements that drivers have auto insurance. Obama would only require that children be covered.

Edwards spokesman Mark Kornblau said Edwards' plan, estimated to cost between $90 billion and $120 billion annually, is "truly universal."

"He believes that incremental measures are not enough," Kornblau said. "Any plan that does not cover all Americans is simply inadequate."

In a CNN-Opinion Research poll conducted earlier this month, about two-thirds said the government should provide national health insurance for all Americans, even if it would mean higher taxes.

Clinton has promised universal health care but has yet to provide specifics.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

For the first time, I've actually heard something I like from Obama.

[JLTucker]

Excellent. He keeps getting better and better.

[mingo]

Sorry, I like Obama, but this is pretty much a no-brainer. Now that corporate America is floating the idea, even the Republicans are at least not opposing it and at best admitting it will happen. Tell me how you're going to get alternative fuel technology really moving, that I want to know about.i

[Spyder]

Nice headline. I'm guessing CNN's editors and target audience are less then enthusiastic about the idea.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I'm just frankly so relieved that even the most progressive of the candidates isn't trying to implement a massive European-style NHS that I'm quite willing to see his proposal in place.

[Darth Wong]

His proposal does not contain any real efforts to cut health-care costs at all; it merely attempts to subsidize middle-class and lower-class health-care costs by taxing rich people. Not that they don't need to pay more taxes, but this is like pissing into a fucking hurricane. America needs to get its health-care costs under control, and that means clamping down on the pharmaceutical industry (particularly its too-cozy relationship with doctors who all too often prescribe high-priced patent-abuse bullshit when an older drug that passed out of patent protection would do the same thing), insurance company gouging (someone explain why malpractice lawsuit payouts remained flat while malpractice insurance rates skyrocketed), and doing something about the insane cost of paperwork in the system which is largely due to the panoply of competing private insurers.

[Darth Raptor]

Nice headline. I'm guessing CNN's editors and target audience are less then enthusiastic about the idea.

I'm not so sure about the latter. Hillary Clinton's also running on a "share prosperity" platform. A lot of people out there ARE starting to wonder why they must continue to live paycheck to paycheck whilst the DOW seeks out new ceilings to crash through. So far, the plutocrats have been able to make the lower and middle classes acquiesce to the constant ass rape with shouts of "boo, terrorism!" and "boo, queers!". But for how long? "Boo, communism!" has already ceased to work vis a vis healthcare. There are too many uninsured folks out there who all agree that something must be done, even a stopgap baby step like Obama's plan.

In regards to that: It could be better, but it's better than nothing which is what I and a lot of other people have right. A temporary solution at best. But frankly, he already had my vote with his "I'm not a Dominionist" statement.

[Darth Wong]

A lot of people out there ARE starting to wonder why they must continue to live paycheck to paycheck whilst the DOW seeks out new ceilings to crash through. So far, the plutocrats have been able to make the lower and middle classes acquiesce to the constant ass rape with shouts of "boo, terrorism!" and "boo, queers!".

The whole "trickle down" argument is still surprisingly effective among most Americans, at least on Internet forums. 30 years and the middle class is still patiently waiting for that trickle to begin.

[CmdrWilkens]

Having actually gone and read the proposal itself is almost NOTHING like what the article talks about. What Obama is talking about is literally using the Federal Govenmnet as the largest freaking HMO ever with the weight to enforce cost controls and technology standards on healthcare providers by sheer weight of market strength. The actual proposal is to create an open enrollment federal healthcare system structured essentially the same as the FEHB plan. We're talking about a taxpayer funded (rather than company funded) plan open to anyone whose employer does not offer at least the same degree of coverage versus cost of the Federal program. In addition it then provides Federal subsidies to those in the lowest income brackets who can use it to purchase the Federal plan or a private plan, then it charges employers who do not offer a plan competitive with the Federal plan an additional burden of payroll taxes to help fund the system.

The real net effect here would be that if private healthcare is truly comepetitive then they should be able to offer equivalent services to this plan at equivalent or better rates but if they can't, as I suspect, then the Federal government becomes the biggest player on the block and can use its market position to dictate increased use of preventitive healthcare and electronic recordkeeping through sheer market dominance. Honestly the actual plan itself (once you get past the language of "Obama believes in america" that every campaign statement contains its a much different plan than what CNN seems to be reporting on.

The Full Plan in pdf format. Its 12 pages of actual plan and 3 pages of footnotes but the first 6 cover the biggest points. Anyway once again our intrepid reporters basically skimmed the text, picked out one or two things then wrote the articel absed on those one or two bits without even bothering to read and realize that they sound as if they are tlkaing about a very different plan.

[Stark]

The whole "trickle down" argument is still surprisingly effective among most Americans, at least on Internet forums. 30 years and the middle class is still patiently waiting for that trickle to begin.

Even worse, many use any example whatever of personal wealth generation or investment as 'proof' of 'trickle down economics' (even though that ISN'T what trickle-down was supposed to do) without considering that your average proper-rich person makes more in a year than they make in their entire lives.

I'm sure wages will rise soon. I'm sure corporations are going to feed some of their profits back to their employees. You know why? Because their employees are STOCK HOLDERS, not the workers

[Ritterin Sophia]

For the first time, I've actually heard something I like from Obama.

You forgot about his stance on Religion?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

For the first time, I've actually heard something I like from Obama.

You forgot about his stance on Religion?

It seems you don't know me well, alas.

[Darth Raptor]

For the first time, I've actually heard something I like from Obama.

You forgot about his stance on Religion?

She wants an official state church.

[Anguirus]

^ Any particular one, or just line them up and have them draw straws?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

For the first time, I've actually heard something I like from Obama.

You forgot about his stance on Religion?

She wants an official state church.

No, I want an ideology that will keep the stupid proles submissive and obedient to their betters and unable to interfere with the accomplishments of the intelligent. Despite my personal distaste for Christianity, it happens to be a convenient tool in the social fabric of a country and society, if it's properly handled. Modern protestantism is not ideal as it's fundamentally populist in character, and I'd crush it if I could. Essentially I am looking for a "Catholicism without Christianity"--a hierarchal structure to which the average, irrational wastrels who comprise the bulk of modern consumerist society will be beholden by their own irrational impulses, a church itself beholden to the State which is therefore incapable of opposing State initiatives, and which, though established, is intimately bound to the hierarchy of the State and therefore has no interest in pandering to the desires of the proles to have their own bourgeoisie morality imposed on the urban elites.

If a more efficient, and more effective tool, with less negative consequences, existed, then I would use it, instead, and gladly.

Not as if having an established church automatically equates to moral law, anyway--all the Scandinavian countries have Lutheranism as their established churches, but this not stop them from being some of the most tolerant and un-religious societies in the world. So there is no direct correlation between the enforcement of morality through law and an established church; quite the opposite: My thesis is that by establishing the church you actually gut its ability to oppose government efforts at morally dubious things to the church, like stem cell research, by linking its existence inextricably to the government. Whereas, in the United States, where freedom of religion is guaranteed, the churches are independent interest groups which, not relying on the state for survival and support, can put immense pressure on it through the popular ballot and protest actions to force the implementation of moral laws applying to the whole of society which cripple the country.

Keep your enemies closer than your friends, good sir; the closer the church is to the government, the more easily it can be controlled, and co-opted to serve as a justifying force for the denial of popular participation in the government, allowing the impulse of the mass of society to impose bourgeoisie morality (time and time again, prohibition, the war on drugs, laws against pornography, laws against gay sex, were based by Christian progressive mass movements in the 19th century, imposed on a society which traditionally did not have any such legislation, on the grounds of improving the morality of the state, whereas the traditional elites were the ones trying to fend off such attempts as representing a disastrous imposition of government authority in areas where it was unnecessary and unnatural).

[The Duchess of Zeon]

And for the record, don't even bother to try and associate me with Jorge Bu$h. I'll hereby state that I have come to oppose every single policy initiative of his that has ever been undertaken, save drilling in ANWR (and I've become quite environmentally conscious, thank you, I just realize that we will soon be utterly desperate for any recoverable oil at all--if we weren't such worthless idiots as a society we would not have to destroy that place to keep our society limping along for another few months as we try to implement ethical replacements for the car culture, but, we are worthless idiots, so it will have to be done), and expanding the operation and construction of nuclear reactors. The Great Populist in the White House ought be damned and take his minions with him, as well as all of the obese, worthless, and slobbering "NASCAR Dads" and "Soccer Moms" who stopped at the polling place to vote for him while on the way to stuff their children full of fat at McDonalds before heading back home to watch television on their 72-inch plasma screen TVs, all done in a 12mpg SUV, naturlich.

Nor am I a hypocrite; I renounced my voter registration the moment I came to these conclusions. If I wish to deny the right to vote to everyone else, I will not permit myself to have it, either.

[Invictus ChiKen]

Duchess that plan for a state church alternatly disgust me and at the same time intrigues me. Useful very, very useful...

[Starglider]

Duchess that plan for a state church alternatly disgust me and at the same time intrigues me.

Fortunately as a fanatical techno-uptopian I do not have to spend long considering such historically grounded plans, preferring instead to focus on the array of upcoming prole-management techniques sufficiently directed cognitive science work is bound to uncover in the near future. We here at The Village will continue our tireless search for ever better techniques to harmonise the un-mutuals and ensure that citizens accord the utmost of respect to the proper authorities.

[Patrick Degan]

The whole "trickle down" argument is still surprisingly effective among most Americans, at least on Internet forums. 30 years and the middle class is still patiently waiting for that trickle to begin.

Oh, but it has:

[Elaro]

You know, I can see it now:

"Obama a Canadian agent, O'Reilly accuses"