… Hillary Clinton says she favors mandates, but isn’t sure there should be a penalty for noncompliance. Barack Obama favors an immediate mandate for children, but doesn’t include one for adults. He says he’s willing to revisit the issue after making health insurance more affordable and enrollment easier, and is also considering an automatic enrollment with an opt-out for those who don’t want to be included.
As a practical matter, the difference between Sen. Clinton’s and Sen. Obama’s approaches come down to timing and sequencing. Mrs. Clinton wants a mandate first, believing that enrolling the younger and healthier will help reduce costs for everyone else. Mr. Obama thinks forcing people to buy health insurance before it’s affordable isn’t realistic. He wants to lower health costs first, and is willing to consider a mandate only if necessary.
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to mandate having the insurance first and then screw it up later.
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p>Mom, now 78 just had a minor car accident. In this state that means the insurance company pays but so do you. They spread your payments out over the course of six years. She is better off paying the damages and keeping the whole thing “off the books”.
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p>Now with medical “insurance” the trends should be more than obvious given the prevailing terms.
“Health Savings Account”.
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p>I also challenge you to ask your insurance company what specifically IS a covered expense before buying from a specific company. Are there “approved” vendors for medical services rendered, including lab work.
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p>The health care disaster is but one symptom of this dying empire so anything these used car salesmen are trying to sell us is just that, a used car.
Mandates are the most regressive way to move toward universalize health coverage.
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p> Here is an argument that mandates are not necessary to avoid cripplingly adverse selection. In Australia only the Bush-loving John Howard pushed for mandates, on conservative principles.
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p>In Massachusetts,the mandate was accepted by community organizations only because it was presented as a deal-breaker. Those same activists now are saying the plans available shouldn’t even be called insurance, their out-of-pockets are so high. And the mandate is not going to save the new subsidized system from drowning.
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p>You can argue that a national mandate is the most realistic step to begin with. But the idea that a mandate distinguishes a plan as progressive is a joke.
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p> Tom Oliphant today exhibits a balanced approach to discussing differences on this issue.
the plan was nixon’s idea.
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p>and it wasn’t exactly born out of conservative principles.
http://www.boston.com/news/loc…
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p>Nationally what are we looking at? In excess of 100 billion a year?
Did someone say mandates make it cheaper? For who?
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p>Clinton vs. Obama on Health Care
Thankfully, I received this thoughtful, intelligent and informative post on just this topic from Merrill Goozner over at GoozNews Feb 1 2008, Unfair and Unbalanced Wonkery on Mandates
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p>We Dems better find a way to coalesce and to demand – including being ready to fight in this protracted David vs. Goliath battle of health system reform – for the reforms that will move us squarely toward a program of Improved American Medicare For All. If we could pull this off, who knows how many Independents and Republicans might choose to join us? And surely it would be more constructive than slogging through this individual mandate mess.
Clinton Health Plan May Mean Tapping Pay