Clinton’s and Obama’s Healthcare Goals: When Will Words Become Actions?

Just who really comprises a significant chunk of the 47 million uninsured and underinsured in this country? Will their situations be helped by either the Clinton or Obama plans? A recent article in the NYT discusses one portion of that unfortunate healthcare demographic: the free rider — that is, the moderate income earning, relatively young and healthy person without any pre-existing condition barring enrollment in many comprehensive plans — who chooses not to enroll in a structured coverage plan.

To Hillary, these persons are the ones who are positioned squarely in the crosshairs of her healthcare mandate. Forcing them to contribute their fair share into the healthcare funding pot would virtually eliminate the wasteful delivery of uncompensated care in this country, care seen mostly in crowded emergency departments and acute care hospital floors. Making healthcare available to all by mandated subsidy would also eliminate, in her words, “discrimination against those with pre-existing medical problems. Only then … would it be fair for the government to require insurers to cover even those likely to require expensive care.”

Barack Obama, on the other hand, sees no value in mandating a policy which would be difficult to enforce — not to mention the cost-prohibitive nature of funding the administrative logistics to do it. To the newly anointed front-runner, insurance mandates should only be for the children. Using taxpayer subsidy and tax-cut rollbacks, he would propose a similar model to provide coverage for the nation’s uninsured children. To close the gap among uninsured adults, a central tenet of his healthcare coverage plan is to simply make it more affordable.

Two views. Two strong Democratic presidential candidates. One winner. A revamped healthcare coverage scheme sure to take years to develop. How long does one really have to wait? | LINK