Someone just unveiled a new plan for universal healthcare: what do you think?

Question

key points of the plan:

--has an "individual mandate," requiring everyone to have health insurance

--builds on the existing employer-based system of coverage
offers a tax subsidy to small businesses to help them afford the cost of providing coverage to their workers

--individuals and families who are not covered by employers or whose employer-based coverage is inadequate, offer expanded versions of two existing government programs: Medicare, and the health insurance plan currently offered to federal employees. Consumers could choose between either government-run program, but no new federal bureaucracy would be created.

So what do you guys think? please state the reason for your belief.

Thx!

disclosure: the someone is Hillary Clinton.

To pay for the plan, Clinton would eliminate the Bush tax cuts for those making over $250,000

Answer 1

I think that the best proposal right now is the one that would give a dollar for dollar tax refund to individuals who have purchased private health insurance.

As of right now there is not enough coverage offered by many employer plans or medicare leaving people without the medical treatment that they need. However, there is no incentive for these individuals to go out and purchase insurance by themselves (for the most part we are talking about people in a low income bracket here). There needs to be a serious reform of the healthcare system in the USA whereby government intervention is severely restricted and the market is allowed to flourish. This will create a number of innovative health insurance products that, when coupled with a reform like tax breaks, will almost certainly provide more coverage than a government run program.

An employer has no incentive to create a quality healthcare scheme if it ends up eating into profits. Mandatory health insurance is a good idea, but only if it creates a financial incentive in someway (tax rebate would do that). So if an employer went above and beyond when picking the healthcare plan they would get a break at tax time.

In the event that the "Clinton" plan does get pushed through and no new federal institution is created then we are looking at an outdated behemoth of an institution having to deal with many more policyholders. The current government healthcare scheme is already overburdened with the number of policyholders that it has, and adding more will just clog the system worse than it already is.

Cut back on the government intervention, create a mandatory health insurance scheme with some sort of financial break, and leave insurance in the hands of the open market... For America nothing else will work..

Answer 2

Male bovine excretement. With usual government inefficiency this will cost a bundle of bucks from our pockets and what healthcare there is will be made worse. Life (if we are lucky) goes on.

Answer 3

Sounds to me like just one more way to benefit those who don't want to help themselves. People like me who work for a living will just be taxed more.