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“This week with George Stephanopoulos” podcast for September 23rd, 2007 had a very interesting interview with Hillary Clinton regarding her scheme to provide affordable health insurance to all Americans.

Health Care Debate

What I find most interesting is that the United States, the worlds richest country, is still debating this while far poorer nations around the world have been providing universal, relatively free health insurance for all their citizens for decades! France has been offering this for a very long time, at relatively no cost to its citizens, same with the United Kingdom and most European Nations… even Cuba, considerably poorer then the United States offers free, basic health care for all its citizens! Their closest neighbor, Canada, has been offering this for decades and you wonder what the hold-up is with the United States in joining the modern world.

Interview Highlights

Politicians aren’t the most interesting during an interview so I will save your ears by listing key points about her proposal, you can pay me back by telling your friends about myfoodcount.com. Starts off good but then goes to shit once direct questions are asked.

• In 1994, her husband tried and failed to pass a universal health care plan in congress
• quality and affordable health care for everybody is an economic necessity for Americans
• believes she must work with congress in order to produce a plan that can pass legislative hurdles
• name of her plan is the “American Health Choices Plan”
• Americans can keep their current plan or migrate to one that better suits their needs and the poor can migrate into a federal plan for their health care needs
• small business tax credits to provide more affordable plans to their employees
• modernizing the health care system with electronic health records
• she believes the country is more receptive now then in 1994 for a universal health care plan
• she never loss her commitment to be smart economically and morally correct in providing health care, she just learned a lot from the 1994 experience which she applied towards this plan
• individuals must buy health insurance under her plan in order to get a job, she believes in shared responsibility between people and their employers
• doesn’t seem sure about how to implement her plan, saying there is a lot of discussions yet to happen to hammer down the details (presumably this will happen after she is elected into office)
• she answers many of George’s direct questions about her plan with basically a “lots of things in the air at the moment, we will see what drops first when I get elected” type vagueness
• oddly enough, she believes the “just say no” answers by the Republicans is unacceptable yet her “let’s talk about it” approach is, as the results from either approach is the same (so far)
• illegal immigrants are not covered under her plan but she will keep working for a basic safety net

My problems with these answers

Firstly, what is it with this vagueness? I would have thought that something that is so dear to her heart (and her husbands), 13 years after the initial failure of passing American National Health Care reforms that the point would be detailed to the max. Answering direct questions with “discussions need to happen” not only regarding implementation but how much can get through congress isn’t very ensuring.

Secondly, universal health care is just that, universal. Forcing the people who cannot afford health insurance on a federal plan while those of means, onto private plans doesn’t scream of universality.

The Bottom Line

Free, universal health care should be a human right, not a battle ground between the private and public sector.