Monday, December 10, 2007

Health Care Reform: Health Mandates vs. Universal Health Care

Health Mandates are features of health care reform plans proposed by Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. Barack Obama has floated a plan without mandates. What are these mandates you ask? They are a requirement that people buy health insurance like car insurance.

There are several problems with this idea. One is cost. The linked article mentions these plans costing 10% of a person's income. This would not be supported by people getting employer sponsored health care for free or people without insurance but who can't afford 10%.

It's unfortunate that no major candidate is proposing universal health care. The American Nurses Association supports universal hc but apparently this is too far left to be considered by the so-called mainstream (read 'just right of center') Democratic candidates.

I think of health care like school districts, police, and fire departments. Could you imagine a fire department not responding to a fire because it wasn't profitable? Yet people are doing the same thing with health care.

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