Paul Starr, bona fide health care expert, gives his review of Hillary Clinton's health care plan. Paul's extremely positive though his view, like that of most everyone who's looked at it, is that the Democrats' plans are all pretty similar. Dare I point out that some of this similarity comes from the fact that their plans are all a bit vague? After all, the difference between more and less generous subsidies could, in this context, be hugely important. I understand (and even to some extent embrace) why the candidates don't want to get hyper-specific on these points, but the upshot is that all the emphasis on "plans" of various sorts hasn't actually rendered things as clear as you might think.
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In The Clouds
24 Sep 2007 05:30 pm
Comments (8)
The fine details of campaign plans are not very important. If elected, Clinton will come up with an entirely different plan which will then be DOA when sent to Congress. Then if she is willing to invest all of her political capital, she might (but probably not) get a compromise plan passed that bares only a passing resemblance to what she released last week.
I didn't quite see it as 'extremely positive." As Paul notes, the Clinton (and Edwards and Obama) plan depends on a number of things working that might not necessarily work. In particular, the regulations on insurers might not sufficiently constrain cherry-picking, which would expose the public plans (both the Medicare clone and the wider FEHBP clone) to adverse selection, driving premiums out of reach absent massive subsidies.
It's still a Rube Goldberg contraption, and if I were a political consultant I'd rather run against this plan than with it.
"Medicare for Kids" would be cheaper, easy to run on, and easier to pass.
While Edaward's and Clinton's plans are indeed very similar (Edwards a little strong), Obama's plan is significantly weaker. I do not know why today's conventional wisdom keeps insisting on how similar they all are. This is just not true.
Furthermore, when it was just Edwards and Obama, nobody was saying how similar they were. When it was just Edwards and Obama, many pointed out the differneces.
I really do wonder if this is a reaction to the surprise that Clinton's plan is more "to the left" than Obama's? Whether the reaction now that Clinton's is out of "well they are all so similar" is to protect Clinton from being accused of being to far to the left (e.g., Edwards), or to protect Obama from his mistake of being to far to the right (and not the bold independent guy he is selling), I am not sure. Maybe a bit of both.
Still truth is:
Edwards > Clinton >>> Obama
DrSteveB
Good point. And in foreign policy we have:
Obama > Edwards >>>> Clinton.
If there was an actual comparison of the candidates going on, instead of the dog and pony show that passes for campaigns and their coverage these days, this could be an interesting situation.
There's this weird and annoying tendency to give the benefit of the doubt to Democratic Presidentials because none of them (a) drool or (b) actively threaten the use of nuclear weapons against countries that we're at peace with.
Soft bigotry of low expectations and all.
Matt Stoller--
To be fair, Hillary DID say it was wrong NOT to threaten to use nuclear weapons against Pakistan!
Matt Y-
The similarity in the plans comes to architecture. It's all about adding a federally run plan, strengthening regulations, and possibly mandating. No single payer, no single-provider, no French-style universal floor with private supplements, no German-style penalties for overhealthy provider pools. The consensus is in working with a particular modification of the existing system rather than overturning it. From a branding point of view, it's pretty smart.
It's hard to conceive of a set of "details" that can't be picked to death over the next 15 months. Leaving things a bit vague makes it harder for opponents to focus their counter-campaign.
It's all vaporware anyway.
Comments closed October 08, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
Health Care is important, but so's the upcoming war with Iran! Check out the discussion under Ganji's Letter.
Posted by Wurd | September 24, 2007 6:04 PM