Another View: Press candidates on details of universal health care New York Sen. Hillary Cl... Another View: Press candidates
New York Sen. Hillary Clinton is no stranger to health-care reform. Most Americans remember her failed efforts during her husband's presidency to spearhead changing the system.
Fortunately, she hasn't given up. She focused on health-care reform during her appearance on ABC's “Good Morning America,” filmed at the Science Center of Iowa on Monday.
More than 99 percent of America's seniors have insurance through Medicare and Medicaid. Will the candidate's plan do as well among all age groups?
So-called individual mandates force people to purchase health care or face financial penalties. If the government mandates purchasing insurance, it must guarantee the coverage is adequate. And forcing Americans into the private sector to buy coverage, with its high administrative costs and CEO salaries, would be more expensive than going to a system like Medicare, with its lower administrative costs.
When lawmakers “reformed” Medicare in 2003, they expanded Medicare Advantage plans, which funnel tax dollars to private insurers to take over the care of seniors. This privatization is wasting billions of tax dollars that could have been saved or spent elsewhere if seniors had remained in traditional Medicare. It's good for the insurance industry and bad for taxpayers. Candidates' plans must be fiscally responsible and crafted with average Americans uppermost in mind, not insurance and drug industries.
The right kind of “universal” health-care system can save money. According to the National Coalition on Health Care, the largest alliance working to improve care, a government-administered, publicly financed health-care system could save 1.1 trillion health-care dollars over 10 years.
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