Hillary Clinton offers new health care plan
BY MICHAEL McAULIFF
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Tuesday, September 18th 2007, 4:00 AM
Hillary Clinton announces proposal to provide affordable health insurance for all Americans yesterday in Iowa. Plan drew criticism from Prez contenders Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.
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DES MOINES - Hillary Clinton Health Care. Volume Two: Keeping it simple this time.
In her second cut at overhauling the nation's health care system, the former First Lady scrapped her disastrous 1993-94 script in favor of a straightforward plan that she said creates no new bureaucracy.
"Today's plan is simpler, yet still bold," she said, promising to maintain private insurance choices Americans now have - and adding a public insurance option.
Clinton has been licking her wounds since her health care debacle nearly derailed her husband's presidency - often joking she has the "scars to show for it" - before unveiling her much-anticipated do-over yesterday.
"Perhaps more than anybody else, I know just how hard this fight will be," said the Democratic White House front-runner, whose proposal was lambasted almost instantly by Democratic and Republican foes - many eager toremind voters of her previous failure.
Her $110 billion-a-year plan would require all Americans to buy insurance - through their jobs or a program modeled on Medicare or the federal employees' health plan.
Businesses would be required to offer insurance or contribute to a coverage pool, subsidized by higher taxes on people making more than $250,000 annually.
"I know my Republican opponents will try to equate health care for all Americans with government-run health care," Clinton said. "Don't let them fool us again. This is not government-run."
She pledged to build a "consensus" with health care providers, businesses, regular people and the insurance industry - all groups she alienated in her closed-door plotting 14 years ago - to finish the job in her first presidential term.
Clinton has accepted more than $800,000 from the health care industry to finance her White House bid. Her pledge to work with many of the same interests that killed her first reform plan - and now flood her campaign coffers - prompted rival John Edwards to pounce.
"The lesson Sen. Clinton seems to have learned from her experience with health care is, 'If you can't beat 'em, join 'em,'" he said. "The cost of failure 14 years ago is not just someone's political future or their scars, it's the millions of Americans who have now been almost 15 years without health care," he added.
Barack Obama slammed her plan as a weak copy of his. "It's similar to the one I put forth last spring, though my universal health care plan would go further in reducing the punishing cost of health care than any other proposal that's been offered in this campaign," he said.
And as Clinton predicted, Republicans panned her proposal.
"Government command and control only increases costs and decreases quality," Rudy Giuliani said.
Mitt Romney, who drew a rebuke from St. Vincent's Hospital Manhattan for using the facility as a backdrop for his attack, said, "The last thing we need is 'Hillary Care.'"
mmcauliff@nydailynews.com
BY MICHAEL McAULIFF
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Tuesday, September 18th 2007, 4:00 AM
Hillary Clinton announces proposal to provide affordable health insurance for all Americans yesterday in Iowa. Plan drew criticism from Prez contenders Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DES MOINES - Hillary Clinton Health Care. Volume Two: Keeping it simple this time.
In her second cut at overhauling the nation's health care system, the former First Lady scrapped her disastrous 1993-94 script in favor of a straightforward plan that she said creates no new bureaucracy.
"Today's plan is simpler, yet still bold," she said, promising to maintain private insurance choices Americans now have - and adding a public insurance option.
Clinton has been licking her wounds since her health care debacle nearly derailed her husband's presidency - often joking she has the "scars to show for it" - before unveiling her much-anticipated do-over yesterday.
"Perhaps more than anybody else, I know just how hard this fight will be," said the Democratic White House front-runner, whose proposal was lambasted almost instantly by Democratic and Republican foes - many eager toremind voters of her previous failure.
Her $110 billion-a-year plan would require all Americans to buy insurance - through their jobs or a program modeled on Medicare or the federal employees' health plan.
Businesses would be required to offer insurance or contribute to a coverage pool, subsidized by higher taxes on people making more than $250,000 annually.
"I know my Republican opponents will try to equate health care for all Americans with government-run health care," Clinton said. "Don't let them fool us again. This is not government-run."
She pledged to build a "consensus" with health care providers, businesses, regular people and the insurance industry - all groups she alienated in her closed-door plotting 14 years ago - to finish the job in her first presidential term.
Clinton has accepted more than $800,000 from the health care industry to finance her White House bid. Her pledge to work with many of the same interests that killed her first reform plan - and now flood her campaign coffers - prompted rival John Edwards to pounce.
"The lesson Sen. Clinton seems to have learned from her experience with health care is, 'If you can't beat 'em, join 'em,'" he said. "The cost of failure 14 years ago is not just someone's political future or their scars, it's the millions of Americans who have now been almost 15 years without health care," he added.
Barack Obama slammed her plan as a weak copy of his. "It's similar to the one I put forth last spring, though my universal health care plan would go further in reducing the punishing cost of health care than any other proposal that's been offered in this campaign," he said.
And as Clinton predicted, Republicans panned her proposal.
"Government command and control only increases costs and decreases quality," Rudy Giuliani said.
Mitt Romney, who drew a rebuke from St. Vincent's Hospital Manhattan for using the facility as a backdrop for his attack, said, "The last thing we need is 'Hillary Care.'"
mmcauliff@nydailynews.com
