Here’s a useful link: The New York Times provides a nutshell summary of what the Presidental Candidates’ health care plans are, and how (they say) they’ll pay for it.
Kucinich is (predictably) the only candidate offering true, universal, single-payer health care. But although that’s the best plan, I doubt it’s politically possible to go there in a single step. In particular, voters who are satisfied with their current health care coverage — that means most of them — are extremely vulnerable to “booga-booga! The Democrats are going to take away your choice!” attacks by Republicans, unless the Democrats can honestly say “if you like what you have now, then you can keep it.” That’s the big advantage of the Clinton/Obama/Edwards/etc plans.
As much as I support getting any kind healthcare reform, realistically Democrats are going to have to say much more than “if you like what you have now, then you can keep it”, they will also have to say, “and this won’t cost you one penny more.”
For the most part, Democrats are saying they’re going to pay for the increased expense by letting Bush’s tax cuts for the rich expire. So they’ll be able to say that 95% of Americans won’t have to pay more.
(Except for previously uninsured people who will now be buying extremely subsidized insurance; but they won’t be paying more to keep what they have, they’ll be paying more to get something that was previously impossible to afford.)
One of the (many, many) problems with the “you can keep what you have” plan is that it keeps the power in the hands of the corporate for-profit insurance companies. Sure, now you’re required to have insurance, but the insurance companies still get to control what treatments you can have, what meds you can have, etc. Just because a person has insurance doesn’t mean that they can actually get the health care they need (not when profit margins are at stake).
And, since it’s at least partially subsidized by employers (another HUGE problem with the current system and with most of the candidate’s plans), then the current problems this creates will never be addressed (like having to go with the insurance plans subsidized by the employer, even if that means changing doctors — which can lead to huge problems, just to name one problem with this system.
The system we have now (and the one that we will have with any of these “universal” plans) means far less control over an individual’s health than a real universal, single payer health plan. That’s what I don’t get — people keep buying into this bullshit that single payer health plans mean less control. What control does the average middle-class or working-class person have over their health? Can you pick your own doctor? And I don’t mean “pick from this select pool we’ve chosen for you,” I mean real choice. Can you actually choose which medical procedures you will get? (And if you think you can, I hope you don’t have to find out the hard way the truth about that.) If you change jobs, can you keep your current doctor? What if your employer decides to go with a different health plan? (Shit, I’ve had to change doctors 3 times in the last year due to a job change and an employer-chosen insurance coverage change. And the last 2 I didn’t even get to pick from a pool of possibilities — they were the ONLY ones covered by my insurance who were taking new patients. And I have decent insurance — it’s not the bargain bin insurance.)
People will be forced to pay out of pocket, and yay, great, they’ll all be insured (but poorer), but that still doesn’t solve the majority of the problems with the health care system. Why put in place a flawed system (that can then be used against real health care reform when it inevitably fails) when it would be better to just keep pointing out the fallacies of the anti-reform propoganda. There aren’t significantly longer wait times in other countries. They don’t have worse care (the US currently ranks 35th in life expectancy). They don’t cost more (the US spends more per person on health care than any other country in the world).
1) Because I don’t think it will inevitably fail. I think it will fail to solve all problems, as you say, but it could succeed in being better than the present system.
2) Because I don’t think we will make it to single-payer health care in a single step, so small steps in the right direction are what we should be working for in the short run.
The seeds of single-payer care are in a couple of the proposed plans, in that people can choose to opt out of corporate insurance and instead get the government plan. In head-to-head competition, over time, I think it’s likely that more and more people will migrate to government insurance if they have the option. After which we will be far better positioned to propose single-payer health care.
The Democrats are going to take away your choice!” attacks by Republicans, unless the Democrats can honestly say “if you like what you have now, then you can keep it.”
Another problem with this is that no one trusts the government to keep it’s word – and I make no distinction between Democrats and Republicans in that regard. My guess would be that if you polled people about this, you’ll find that they think that once the new plans come in, the “if you like what you have now, then you can keep it” will soon thereafter go away, regardless of the promises made beforehand.
… voters who are satisfied with their current health care coverage — that means most of them…
Really? Most voters are satisfied with their current health coverage? In 20 years of having employer provided or subsidized health care insurance, I’ve been satisfied w/ what I had once – for 3 1/2 years. And that was a self-insured Union program. And I worked with the person who approved or denied coverage, so everything was always covered. But I’ve never heard of another plan that came anywhere close.
I guess most voters don’t understand what their current health care coverage actually covers. I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am.
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