Saturday, January 26, 2008

Break Down of the Issues - Part 6

Domestic Policy

Back on track. After a one week battle with our bathroom, we finally have a new floor in. My advice to anyone planning to do any work on ceramic tile, buy a wet saw. The other tools out there are important (tile scorer, tile nipper, etc.) but after fighting with these tools for three days to almost no avail, the wet saw let me cut everything and get it in mortar in about six to eight hours. And now on to the second most commonly discussed subject in this campaign - health care.

Domestic policy will be broken up into numerous sections as the candidates go in depth on plans for numerous topics. See also Part 1, Part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5 and part 7. Again, all of these policy statements are taken from the candidates' campaign websites.

Hillary Clinton John Edwards Barack Obama
Health Care
Link Link (PDF) Link
Insurance
  • Give people the choice of current insurance plans or allow them to select from the congressional health plans
  • Strengthen Medicaid and CHIP
  • Require large employers to provide insurance at least partially, give small business tax cuts to provide insurance
  • Give individuals a tax credit for coverage designed to keep premiums to a fixed percent of income
  • Remove hidden taxes to reduce premium cost for current civilian plans
  • Include mental, physical, and, in some plans, dental coverage
  • End unfair health insurance discrimination
  • Create regional health care markets allowing individuals and businesses in a region to pool their money to get lower premiums
  • Expand Medicaid and SCHIP to cover families with children making 50k or less
  • Require businesses to cover employees, at least partially
  • Refundable tax credits to reduce insurance costs
  • Cover mental health care as well as physical
  • Reform insurance laws to ensure everyone is eligible
  • Lower premium incentives for healthy lifestyle
  • Create a public benefit program similar to the Congressional one
  • Expand Medicaid and SCHIP
  • Employers will be required to provide at least partial coverage, or contribute to a national plan
  • Individuals who aren't eligible for Medicaid/SCHIP can receive federal subsidies if needed
  • Create the National Health Insurance Exchange - watchdog group that will monitor participating insurance companies and provide individuals with a way to compare them
  • Dependant coverage through a parent's plan expanded up to the age of 25
  • Cover preventative, mental, and pregnancy health care
  • Guaranteed eligibility, no matter pre-existing conditions
  • Simplify public plan enrollment
  • Regular audits of participating insurance companies
  • Set minimum standards for state health initiatives, but will not overrule plans that meet/exceed this standard
  • Reimburse insurance plans for catastrophic event coverage, if reimbursement is used to keep premiums down
Providers
  • No new provider initiatives provided on her site
  • Pay doctors based on results
  • Easily available health care provider quality reports
  • Push the use of electronic medical records
  • Restrict direct to consumer drug advertising for new drugs
  • Strengthen FDA monitoring policy
  • Reward providers who give better quality results
  • Require health care providers to publish care reports
  • Independent institute to review providers
  • Invest 10 billion to move paper records to electronic records over 5 years
  • Bring antitrust laws to bear against malpractice insurance providers that overcharge physicians
  • Allow consumers to buy drugs from other developed countries
Mandates*
  • Require individuals to obtain insurance
  • Require all Americans to get insurance (special case exemptions)
  • All children must be covered
*A mandate is a requirement for each individual to purchase insurance. Candidates have not yet specified on their sites what penalties will be faced by those who do not.

6 comments:

no_slappz said...

john j, no matter how well intentioned, Obama's plans will raise the cost of healthcare faster than any alternative.


Like I've said, before any of this can happen, we have to act like European nations: We must put low caps on malpractice awards in lawsuits and we must restrict medical coverage to Americans.

Under existing rules, there are no limits to malpractice awards and medical coverage would go to illegal aliens.

That combination is guaranteed to bankrupt the nation.

John J. said...

"Obama's plans will raise the cost of healthcare faster than any alternative." Do you have any proof for this blanket statement, or is it just FUD?

As for your other comments, I will reply in the more recent post going into detail on the plans.

no_slappz said...

john j, according to your chart Obama says:

"Create a public benefit program similar to the Congressional one"

Create = Increase expenditures

"Expand Medicaid and SCHIP

Expand = Increase expenditures

"Employers will be required to provide at least partial coverage, or contribute to a national plan
Individuals who aren't eligible for Medicaid/SCHIP can receive federal subsidies if needed..."

Federal subsidies = increased expenditures

"Create the National Health Insurance Exchange - watchdog group that will monitor participating insurance companies and provide individuals with a way to compare them

Create = Increased expenditures

"Dependant coverage through a parent's plan expanded up to the age of 25

Expanded = increased expenditures

"Cover preventative, mental, and pregnancy health care
Guaranteed eligibility, no matter pre-existing conditions
Simplify public plan enrollment
Regular audits of participating insurance companies...

Guaranteed = increased expenditures with no limits

"Set minimum standards for state health initiatives, but will not overrule plans that meet/exceed this standard...

Set standards = increased expenditures

"Reimburse insurance plans for catastrophic event coverage, if reimbursement is used to keep premiums down...

Reimburse = increased expenditures

His plan will set records that might bust the bank

no_slappz said...

john j, Obama says:

"Reward providers who give better quality results...

Or, putting this another way, suing the providers with lower quality results = increased expenditures

"Require health care providers to publish care reports...

Require = increased expenditures

"Independent institute to review providers...

Review = increased expenditures

"Invest 10 billion to move paper records to electronic records over 5 years

Invest $10 billion = actual expenditure $20 billion

"Bring antitrust laws to bear against malpractice insurance providers that overcharge physicians...

Antitrust actions = vastly increased expenditures. This strategy worked remarkably well against IBM, ATT and Microsoft. Yeah.

"Allow consumers to buy drugs from other developed countries...

Of course. In other words, another country whose taxpayers subsidize consumer drug purchases for its citizens is going to allow 300 million Americans to buy drugs subsidized by those taxpayers in that other country.

Yeah, that would thrill the taxpayers in the country expected to subsidize purchases by foreign buyers. Brilliant idea. How long would it take for the other country to slap a big tax on the exported drugs to recapture the subsidy?

John J. said...

So what you are saying slappz is Breathe = Raise Expenditures. Yes when the government spends money on new projects, it does increase the amount of money spent. It doesn't take a securities trader to realize this. However, both candidates have very specific plans on how to pay for this and a very specific budget that will not "break the bank."

Many of the rest of your statements are just straw men:
"Or, putting this another way, suing the providers with lower quality results"
"Invest $10 billion = actual expenditure $20 billion"
And, in case you haven't heard of straw men either, it is taking something a person said, changing it significantly (often through hyperbole) so that it is completely different from what the person has actually said, and then counter the newly created statement and acting like you countered the actual statement.

As for your argument against anti-trust, it did work incredibly well against IBM, they still exist, and in fact, you barely hear about SPARC or DB2 in the professional server/DB world. As for AT&T and MS, it would have helped to have an administration that actually enforced anti-trust, as opposed to the current administration that effectively aided in tearing down the anti-trust regulation against AT&T, and completely dropped the ball against MS.

"Allow consumers to buy drugs from other developed countries"

I completely agree with your comments about this. I intend to address what I think needs to happen in my next post.

no_slappz said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.