Clinton Rachets Up Contrast With Obama On Health Care

For a few months, a Barack Obama television ad in New Hampshire has touted his health care plan's promise to cover everyone.

Today, Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, in remarks aimed at Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe, called the claim "completely false" and "should be taken off the air."

Neera Tandem, Clinton's policy adviser, said: "Choosing to forgo a mandate [means] it is not universal."

But reporters on this conference call had questions for Tanden. Ron Brownstein wanted to know, in absence of any information about how much money lower income families would have to spend on health care before having spent enough to qualify for subsidies, how could the campaign know that everyone would be covered?

A Los Angeles Times reporter wanted to know how Clinton's mandate would be enforced. "She would enforce her mandate through default enrollment," Tanden said.

Those who, for example, go to the emergency room and are found to lack insurance would be automatically enroll.(John Edwards's plan has a similar mechanism).

By way of rebuttal, Obama's advisers circulated comments by MIT's Jonathan Gruber, a Clinton adviser, who acknowledged that any plan short of "single payer" would allow about a percent and a half of the U.S. population -- around 2 million people -- to go without coverage.

Though the ad has been around for months, Clinton's team may have been prompted to act in the wake of a withering column by New York Times's Paul Krugman. His lede is:

"From the beginning, advocates of universal health care were troubled by the incompleteness of Barack Obama’s plan, which unlike those of his Democratic rivals wouldn’t cover everyone. But they were willing to cut Mr. Obama slack on the issue, assuming that in the end he would do the right thing."

For the Clinton campaign, the debate encapsulates their core argument against Obama: that Clinton's experience gives her a font of knowledge and judgment on critical issues that Obama simply lacks.

Bill Burton, Obama's spokesman, says: "The Clinton campaign didn't say a word when this ad was released a month ago, and the only thing that's changed since then is the poll numbers. The truth is, Barack Obama's universal plan will provide coverage to every single American who can't afford it and do more to cut the cost of health care than any other plan in this race. Rather than spending their time attacking Barack Obama, the Clinton campaign should explain how exactly they plan to force every American to buy health insurance even if they can't afford it."

Comments

So the Clinton people say they will enforce the mandate by enrolling people, by force, who can't afford it. Ummm...ok.

Posted by David | November 30, 2007 11:46 AM

Krugman is working OT for Hillary..he slammed Obama on Social Security and now comes to her aid on health care. Ah, to be a fotw.......

Posted by Elisabeth | November 30, 2007 12:52 PM

The proper frame is: how would you cover everyone.

you cover no one with a plan you cannot enact. so the question becomes how would you enact your plan. mandates, perhaps unfairly, are poisonous to the health care debate--americans simply do not like the prospect of having anything forced upon them.

under clinton's plan i am not covered (i have not been to the er in years and i have no health insurance), so technically her plan is not universal. no plan is.

but it also does little to promote preventative medicine--keeping the healthy, who do not come into the er, healthy. i.e. it lacks the proper political and social incentives to achieve the broad-based acceptance it would need to become a durable social program.

the idea of automatic enrollment is also problematic when it comes to default--let's say i got so mad at Hillary that i stub my toe, go to the ER get enrolled but refuse or fail to pay, what happens when I get mad again, stub my toe again and go back and they tell me i haven't been paying my deductible. how are they going to force me to pay it.

it is interesting that hillary is focusing her ire on a technical argument instead of tackling thornier political issues like the problem with pre-existing conditions. this is where government intervention would be appropriate. by making it legally impossible for insurers to dump high risk patients, it creates an incentive in the marketplace for insurers to seek out healthy people to enroll to cover their risk. but insurers don't want this and hillary won't make a big deal about it.

this is precisely the kind of intellectual dishonesty that has been such a drag on her campaign. A lot of people would be willing to rally round her if she stopped this kind of sophistry and she disavowed the lobbyists, but when they find out the kinds of things she and her campaign does, its a turn off. this is just another example.

Posted by JC | November 30, 2007 1:03 PM

I trust Obama to make health care reform a reality over Clinton.
Her record of failure vs. Obama's success in Illinois tells me who has the ability to do this and know what to do.
I also do not want to be mandated. The very fact that Clinton does so feeds into the rightwing tactic of painting dems as socialists and will give them all kinds of fodder to create a huge division over this very subject.
Leaving mandates off gives the sense of free will and makes this less of a lightening rod for republican attack.
I say Obama is the savvy one here.

Posted by vwcat | November 30, 2007 7:20 PM

I trust Obama... over Clinton.

vwcat - you can almost fill in the middle of your sentence with anything. Trust is big with independents. Obama will attract them, and Clinton will repel them.

Posted by Paul | November 30, 2007 7:52 PM

I agree trust is big with independents. That's why this independent is supporting Clinton, and not Obama.

Posted by RalphB | November 30, 2007 8:34 PM

So with Hillary's plan, if I'm laid off, and only receive umemployment which is a fraction of my salary-I would be forced to pay for insurance rather than rent, food, and other nessicities? Doesn't sound democratic to me.

Posted by sonya | November 30, 2007 10:42 PM

Neera Tandem, Clinton's policy adviser, said: "Choosing to forgo a mandate [means] it is not universal."

Is that so? Seems to me that HRClinton is trying to define what universal is. Simply mandating Healthcare insurance does not make it universal, either. We know this because of auto insurance.

So, mandating does not make her plan universal.

That needs to be what Barack replies. If by universal it is meant that All Americans are covered...neither plan is universal. Not even Hillary's.

Which just goes to show how totalitarian Hillary's mindset it...she is a powermad termagant who thinks she can FORCE people to BUY insurance! Having Forced them she claims it is universal.

NOT

What we need is to be able to purchase healthcare that is affordable. That means all those who universally want the affordable healthcare can purchase it. It is a choice. Obama's plan is the best plan and it has the most likelihood of passing Congress.

Hillary's plan is one that benefits the insurance companies as it automatically increases their profits as folks MUST purchase insurance, just like states do with auto insurance and the consumer is a captive buyer. There is no incentive for the insurers to make the insurance afforable as it is mandatory!

Mandatory is NOT universal.

Posted by vicissitudes | December 1, 2007 7:13 PM