Candidates’ Positions on Healthcare
by R. William HollandBoard Chair, United Professionals
Link to article
We at United Professionals waited quite anxiously for the details of Senator Hillary Clinton’s health care coverage proposals. When they finally arrived, we were disappointed — we had high hopes because she clearly has the capacity to understand the issues and the compassion to identify with those in need.
Here is our take on the issue of healthcare reform and the candidates’ plans in general: None of the proposals advanced so far resolve the problems that come with an employer-paid system of access to health insurance. You would still need a full-time job to get affordable coverage. Proposals that do not solve that problem do not, in fact, solve the problem of an affordable healthcare program — even though every industrialized nation in the world has managed the issue.
People with part-time jobs, no jobs, and the self-employed will still not have equal access to the system because they often cannot afford coverage — they will not belong to a risk pool that allows the cost of getting sick to be spread across a healthier/more cheaply covered population. And people with pre-existing conditions are unable to get coverage at all.
We wanted to give you our take on the issues and simultaneously start giving you plenty of information so you can make up your own minds. Therefore, we have included links to what the candidates and others are saying about healthcare. Try to ignore their rhetoric and pay close attention to whether they really address the problem: we have a system that keeps coverage from people when they need it most and makes coverage easy to get when needed least.
We have got to find a better way, but none of the proposals we have seen so far do that. Barbara Ehrenreich, Founder and Board Member, United Professionals
Links to Candidates’ Healthcare Plans:
Hillary Clinton: http://www.hillaryclinton.com/feature/healthcareplan/?sc=8
Barack Obama: http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/HealthPlanOverview.pdf
John Edwards: http://johnedwards.com/about/issues/health-care-overview.pdf
Mitt Romney: http://www.mittromney.com/Issue-Watch/Health_Care
Rudy Giuliani: http://www.joinrudy2008.com/commitment.php?num=7
Fred Thompson: http://www.fred08.com/Principles/PrinciplesSummary.aspx?View=OnTheIssues
John McCain: http://www.johnmccain.com
Dennis Kucinich:
http://www.dennis4president.com/go/issues/a-healthy-nation/
Bill Richardson:
http://www.richardsonforpresident.com/issues/healthcare
As a nonprofit organization, UP cannot legally endorse any candidate or legislation.
[Ed. note: We inadvertantly left of the links for Dennis Kucinich and Bill Richardson. Thanks to the observant supporters who pointed out our error!]
Tags: affordable_healthcare, barackobama, barack_obama, barbara_ehrenreich, healthcare_plans, healthcare_program, health_care_coverage, hillaryclinton, pre_existing_conditions, risk_pool, senator_hillary_clinton
November 20th, 2007 at 7:22 am
I agree that what has been put forward so far has been disappointing, but it is hardly surprising. The insurance and pharmaceutical companies have had decades to entrench in people’s minds the notion that what we have is the best possible system. Add in Americans’ general ignorance of everything outside the U.S. and the overwhelming sense we have that however we do things is always the best way, and we could anticipate that Americans would continue to favor the status quo.
November 20th, 2007 at 7:39 am
I see UP lines up with the mainstream media in cancelling out Kucinich and others in their “analysis.” I should have known that a class-based organization of “professionals” would line up along class lines.
November 20th, 2007 at 8:38 am
Dennis Kucinich proposes universal health care - why don’t you have that information on your website?
November 20th, 2007 at 9:00 am
Thank you!
David Sapadin
Naperville, IL
November 20th, 2007 at 9:11 am
Why did you leave out Dennis Kucinich?
November 20th, 2007 at 10:30 am
Dennis Kucinich has a fully operative national health care plan that shifts the revenue from medicare to all citizens. The insurance system, in his plan, is not involved. It is managed on a state-by-state basis and if funds are not available it institutes a nominal tax to either health care consumers or providers or both. It covers every aspect ,including the purchase of drugs and long-term care, and could be implemented in a few years.
Check it out !
November 20th, 2007 at 11:06 am
What about Gov. Richardson’s plan? Medicare for everyone 55 and over. Check out http://www.Richardsonforpresident.com.
Agree with others that you should add Kucinich to your list also.
November 20th, 2007 at 11:42 am
All of the above respondents are right about Kuchinich and UP needs to get their act together and get behind this man. In my opinion, he is the only candidate qualified to run as President of the United States - and with the moral courage and fortitude to follow through on all of his policies - Iraq included.
November 20th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
I think that the real problem is that not enough people (yet) see this as a problem. As long as the ones in charge (our elected representatives) have insurance themselves, our somewhat scattered complaints will never be as loud as the insurance companies’ organized campaign contributions. This is further exemplified by HRC’s having had (in the 2006 elections) the second highest level of contributions from healthcare providers, only under Rick Santorum (formerly R-PA), per Michael Moore’s “Sicko”.
Unfortunately, my answer to the $100,000 question–what do we do about it?–is the same as everyone else’s: I don’t know either.
November 20th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Please include Governor Richardson. Also, he has a GREAT record in New Mexico for creating high tech jobs.
November 20th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
Have not read what Mr. Kucinich’s health care solution entails. But all other candidates’ plans seem to be trying to hard to keep the powerful players in the health care industry happy and providing only bandaid solutions to addressing fundamental problems of this country’s health care situation.
My message to the candidates: Stop dancing around the bush and commit to a heath care system that solves the fundamental flaws or you will not get my vote!
November 20th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
Kucinich will not have his parties support for anything that he might try to do, including getting nominated.
at http://phillies2008.org/ under issues there is a paragraph about health care. It does not saolve the whole problem, but neither will anyone else. But it does address some of the real costs of health care.
As more people lose their insurance simply making those insured people pay more will not work.
The underlaying cause of this is the major parties have exported everyone’s job to China, so they cannot pay for anyting.
November 20th, 2007 at 6:16 pm
When will people “get it” that employer-sponsored health plans compromise your privacy. It’s easy to lose your job because of your health issues or those of your family members who are also on your plan. Anybody who thinks Human Resources/Health doesn’t talk with Human Resources/Hiring and Firing is dreaming. Because your health plan is with your employer, they know information they’re not allowed to ask in an interview - age, handicaps, state of health, mental health, cancer risk, and so forth. We need a national health plan that allows us some privacy.
November 21st, 2007 at 10:10 pm
“Kucinich will not have his parties support for anything that he might try to do, including getting nominated.”
Why bother with this whole democracy sham then?
“The underlaying cause of this is the major parties have exported everyone’s job to China”
And again, KUCINICH was OPPOSING THAT (exporting of jobs, NAFTA, MFN status for China, etc) at every opportunity, unlike the other candidates.
On almost every single issue, Kucinich has been right for the working people of this country. Unlike the other candidates, most of whom are in the free-trade-uber-alles camp (or will be when the trade bill votes are counted)
You whine when the candidates don’t vote your way, and you whine that the candidate who does vote your way won’t get nominated. Why bother at all?
November 23rd, 2007 at 8:51 am
The number of comments on this topic complaining about the treatment of Dennis Kucinich is understandable and I completely agree with them. However, this is not a health-care issue so much as it is an electoral system issue.
As much as I too like what Dennis Kucinich has to say about health care and most other issues, let me put in a good word for the plan that has been offered by John Edwards. I think there is widespread misunderstanding of his plan because it leaves the present insurance companies still in business selling health-care insurance and it leaves company health plans as they are.
However, his plan also offers an option to people and businesses to adopt a single-payer plan modeled on Medicare and his (quite reasonable) contention is that people will generally opt for this better, more efficient and less expensive plan. In other words, the effect will be to migrate to a single-payer system.
The advantage of this approach is political. The program is not mandatory so the insurance companies will have difficulty crafting advertisements to say that anyone is being forced into a government program. No one is being forced, they have complete freedom to stay with their high priced corporate insurance plan if they want to, but the reality is that people will in fact choose the government plan if it offers better coverage at lower price.
November 23rd, 2007 at 12:48 pm
We are pleased to see the substantial and on-going interest in the topic. Besides working to get the current system changed, one of our major objectives is to help people get better information on the issues.
Please give UP a helping hand by letting your friends and family know of our existence and encouraging them to join the organization as well as the discussion.
Thanks,
R. William Holland
Board Chair, United Professionals
November 23rd, 2007 at 4:18 pm
Myles:
I am working trying to build another party
http://www.pvla.net.
Whatever faults democracy may have many of the alternatives are worse. Canada, France, the UK , and some others are democratic countries and they have a health plan. They also are not limited to two major parties.
The problem here is that Americans are trained to limit their consideration to the two major parties. In effect they have allowed someone else to limit their choices. No one is going to hand us another political party and no one is going to hand us a health system, and no one is going to hand us a viable economy.