Letters to the Editor
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Mrs. Clinton's plan is not "universal"
No plan is. One could say her plan comes closer to covering everyone, but is it enough to get premiums lower for everyone?
Its easy to flippantly explain away how 10% of the economy that is "off the books" can get a weekend job to pay for health care. But if they aren't doing it now for insurance, why in the hell would someone take a job that forces them to do it? Add in other "cheats" and you're probably pretty close to that 15% uncovered that some say Obama's plan leaves out.
Forcing everyone to purchase private insurance means the federal government has a moral responsibility to subsidize those who can't afford the premiums. How does that get funded year after year when there is so many other unfunded mandates already written into the law?
I don't know a single person who is without health insurance by choice, and could afford to purchase it.
Mrs. Clinton's plan proposes to bring the costs of premiums down by mandating everyone be covered by private insurance.
We've had mandatory auto insurance in my state for years. Yet a National Association of Independent Insurers found that "the average liability insurance premium for the non-mandatory states is 26 percent less than the nationwide average. Meanwhile, policyholders in states requiring the purchase of insurance pay above-average premiums. Moreover, from 1992 to 1996, the average liability premium in mandatory states rose $46, while rising only $37 in non-mandatory states."
So I don't trust that simply mandating insurance automatically means lower costs. In the meantime, we're forcing folks who can't afford the premiums to buy them, hoping the insurance industry will lower their costs.
And mandating everyone purchase insurance does nothing to lower the health care costs that are forcing insurance rates up in the first place.
Health care inflation is running at three times the rate of the general consumer price index and that rate of inflation has little to do with how many people are un-insured.
Obesity, aging populations, shortage of primary care physicians, drug costs etc, are far more responsible for the high cost of health care.
How would mandated insurance be the solution to those issues?
A viable plan should seek to get health care costs under control first, and not slam working families with an unfundable mandate to carry burdens they can't currently afford.
Under those conditions, Sen. Obama's plan comes the closest and is more feasable.