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Hillary Clinton on Health Care
This candidate has withdrawn from the election
"It's time to provide quality affordable health care for every American," Clinton said. "And I intend to be the president who accomplishes that goal finally for our country." A Clinton adviser compares the plan's "individual mandate" -- which requires everyone to have health insurance -- to current rules in most states that require all drivers to purchase auto insurance, according to The Associated Press.
Q: "Would you support a universal health care bill?" CLINTON: "We need to take step-by-step progress toward providing insurance for every American. I'd expand the Children's Health Insurance Program. I'd allow people between 55 and 65 to buy into Medicare."
Senate debate in Manhattan Oct 8, 2000
"We already spend more money than anybody else in the world, by about $800 billion, and we have 47 million uninsured. We're also at a competitive disadvantage because other countries either provide health care or don't, and our companies are trying to be competing in a global economy. So I want to figure out how we provide universal health care without putting billions more into the system. Let's get prescription drug prices down by negotiating with the drug companies, for example."
2007 AFSCME Democratic primary debate in Carson City Nevada Feb 21, 2007
"...I will be requiring all Americans to have health care..."
“[Universal healthcare] is both a core democratic value and an imperative for our country.... We have to regulate the health insurance industry differently. We have to say to them that they can no longer deny coverage to anyone, and they have to cover everyone, including every preexisting condition.”
I won't pay for it by pouring money into a broken system. I won't pay for it by raising taxes on middle class families who are already struggling with rising costs and stagnant wages. Instead, I'll pay for part of it by implementing the cost saving measures I outlined in May. And I will pay for some of it by rolling back part of President Bush's fiscally irresponsible tax breaks for the highest income Americans. And I'll pay for some of it by limiting the tax breaks for people making over $250,000 a year to the same level that ordinary, middle class Americans get.
We can save money within the existing system. I am not ready to put new money into a system that doesn't work until we've tried to figure out how to get the best outcomes from the money we already have.
We have to lower costs, improve quality and cover everybody. What's important and what I learned in the previous effort is you've got to have the political will -- a broad coalition of business and labor, doctors, nurses, hospitals, everybody -- standing firm when the inevitable attacks come from the insurance companies and the pharmaceutical companies that don't want to change they system because they make so much money out of it.
2007 Dem. debate at Saint Anselm College Jun 3, 2007
Q: In 1993, why did you recommend measures that would have hurt New York's teaching hospitals? CLINTON: Senator Moynihan was absolutely right to propose a piece of legislation that would guarantee that our teaching hospitals will be funded to perform the functions that they do which can not be performed within the market at a profit, namely, training our doctors and nurses and providing health care for the sickest of the sick and doing the research we all benefit from.
Clinton-Lazio debate, Buffalo NY Sep 13, 2000
She called for expanding eligibility for the government-run Children's Health Insurance Program. Her plan, she said, would enable roughly five million more children to enroll. Clinton also proposed financial bonuses as a reward to states that aggressively enroll more children in the program. And she called for establishing a new national health insurance program for low-income families that is modeled after a NY program. She offered no details in her speech.
NY Times, p. A22 Feb 13, 2001
"So I am proposing a plan to make quality affordable health care available to every single child in this country."
Hillary Clinton's health care goals: 1) Provide Tax Relief to Ensure Affordability: Working families will receive a refundable tax credit to help them afford high-quality health coverage. 2) Limit Premium Payments to a Percentage of Income: The refundable tax credit will be designed to prevent premiums from exceeding a percentage of family income, while maintaining consumer price consciousness in choosing health plans. 3) Create a New Small Business Tax Credit: To make it easier-not harder-for small businesses to create new jobs with health coverage, a new health care tax credit for small businesses will provide an incentive for job-based coverage.
In her plan, Clinton said families would receive tax credits to help pay for coverage. The tax credit would be designed to limit the premiums to a percentage of a family's income. Federal subsidies would be provided for those who are not able to afford insurance, and large businesses would be expected to provide or help pay for their employees' insurance.
Employers will help financing the system; large employers will be expected to provide health insurance or contribute to the cost of coverage: small businesses will receive a tax credit to continue or begin to offer coverage.
While I will be requiring all Americans to have health care, I will be calling on employers to do their part as well. ... Under my plan, large companies will be required to help pay for their employees' health care. Those that do so can simply maintain their current policy that they choose. Those that don't, will need to contribute towards the cost of covering their employees on a sliding scale based on their size and average wages. ... We won't require small businesses to cover employees. Instead we will provide tax credits to ensure that many of them do. ... The government will provide tax-credits to insure that every single American can afford health insurance.
Q: What about health care? CLINTON: We need a uniquely American solution to our health care challenges. [For example], I have pushed to have a big pool that small businesses could participate in, like we do in the federal government. Small businesses should be able to join together like the Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan. There are pieces of things we should do now, but there's no doubt that we need to have a national conversation-the payers, the employers, the doctors, the nurses, and those of us in public life--we need to get this fixed, once and for all.
NY 2006 Senate Debate, at University of Rochester Oct 22, 2006