User 3

Clinton health plan may mean tapping pay

By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press Writer
Sun Feb 3, 11:40 AM ET

WASHINGTON - Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday she might be willing to garnish the wages of workers who refuse to buy health insurance to achieve coverage for all Americans.

The New York senator has criticized presidential rival Barack Obama for pushing a health plan that would not require universal coverage. Clinton has not always specified the enforcement measures she would embrace, but when pressed on ABC's "This Week," she said: "I think there are a number of mechanisms" that are possible, including "going after people's wages, automatic enrollment."

Clinton said such measures would apply only to workers who can afford health coverage but refuse to buy it, which puts undue pressure on hospitals and emergency rooms. With her proposals for subsidies, she said, "it will be affordable for everyone."

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"The clergy, by getting themselves established by law, and ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man."

hnooe

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Good for her! We cannot affored not to have a system of Universal Coverage in 2008, it may be unfortunate for some, why should you gain from the system if you don't want to put anything into it and you have the money to pay! It is like dietary obese people (non thyroid, non diabetic, etc., etc.) and cigarette smokers--change your darn bad habits or pay up!

User 3

Whatever happened to personal liberties?

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"The clergy, by getting themselves established by law, and ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man."

rapunzel

The problem with Mrs. Clinton's argument is that she supposes that uninsured Americans can afford health insurance, they just choose not to buy it.

That's not my experience.

A family of four making $80,000 per year is not poor, but health insurance would be $700-800 per month. If they have a house, two cars, childcare, utilities, and a nasty habit of eating there is probably just not room in the budget. People don't gamble their credit, their security, their future to "game the system".

Further, hospitals and emergency rooms are not going bankrupt left and right. There is a great deal of protectionism in place (WaltonGOP wrote of a great example recently on the Universal Health Care thread). Corporate hospital systems are as bad as drug companies...and they have just as many lobbyists.

Forcing people to buy health insurance by garnishing their wages....that is just the kind of thing that will keep Democrats out of office come November. That is not a solution to our health care crisis. It's a dodge. It panders to insurance companies and corporate hospitals, but does nothing to address the costs -- the waste and inefficiencies and ridiculous bureaucratic red tape that keeps prices high.

In real life, wealthy people who don't bother to get insurance but then go to the emergency room get this thing called a bill. They can call the billing department and negotiate down from the astronomical billed charges and pay the bill. Or, the hospital will sue them and garnish their wages after ruining their credit. This is such a pathetic solution to a non-problem.

HRC created many of the problems in health care today when she failed to pass health care reform in 1994, and in a desperate attempt to save face politically compromised and added a bunch of terrible concessions to the insurance companies and hospital lobbies onto Kennedy Kasenbaum and HIPAA. She is an incrementalist and triangulator and she is unable to achieve the kind of change we need.

Health care must be reformed. We could go with consumer driven health care and HCSA's, or we could go with cost cutting and getting rid of the archaic rules and protectionism that drive up costs and subsidizing FEP programs to add the uninsured to the rolls (which is just cost shifting if not accompanied by real cost reductions). If we continue to do nothing and let the lobbyists design the 'reform', then we will end up with a demand for a single payor system come 2012 and then we'll envy Canadians who have to wait three years for breast reconstruction and other elective surgeries.

Bob

the equation is more people equals fewer liberties