Gephardt, robbing the rich to pay the powerful

[MORTARDUDE]

http://www.hernandotoday.com/MGA432EB4FD.html

Gephardt, robbing the rich to pay the powerful
JOHN HALL
Published: Apr 30, 2003


It all comes rushing back. The Harry and Louise commercials day and night. Ira Magaziner and Hillary Clinton in deep West Wing conversation. Employer mandates, managed care, universal coverage, blah, blah, blah.
Is this what the battle for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination is to be fought over - health care? Seems so. War appears to be a losing issue for Democratic doves. The economy is a crapshoot. Few in the party seem to really care much about budget deficits.
The Democrats' core, labor-liberal coalition wants red meat. National health insurance - first proposed by Harry S. Truman -- appears to be it...again.
When Richard Gephardt announced his $240 billion-a-year plan for subsidized care last week, it created a stir in a campaign that has stirred up mostly trouble. Sen. John Edwards' fundraising irregularities have led to an investigation by the criminal division of the Justice Department. Sen. John Kerry's call for "regime change" in the United States resonated horribly.
Gephardt hasn't been able to attract any attention except among Democratic doves angered at his backing of war against Iraq. But his timing last week on what he called the "moral issue of our time" was impeccable.
With war news shrinking, attention has started to turn back to the home front. The Gephardt health care solution became the first policy blockbuster of the campaign.
His proposal is a re-plate of the one he offered in the House. What really got everyone's attention was how he would finance it. He would repeal all the tax cuts President Bush has gotten through Congress and any he might get through in the future.
That is such a thumb-in-the-eye position that Republicans called out the National Federation of Independent Business - chief nemesis of the Clinton plan -- to condemn Gephardt.
Gephardt's opponents were flabbergasted at all the headlines.
Outflanked on his left, former Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont charged that Gephardt had aimed for "pie in the sky" - an unusual position for someone who had been deriding his opponents as too timid. But Dean's assessment of the chances for the Gephardt proposal is on target. Even a Medicare prescription drug benefit bill is foundering in Congress.
Dean, a physician, has a much more modest proposal that would guarantee only major medical coverage for the uninsured. That doesn't have any chance either.
So far, none of the Democratic hopefuls has offered the solution liberals really want except former Vice President Al Gore - and he decided not to run again.
Gore endorsed "single payer" health insurance - which means government-run insurance for everyone young and old.
Gephardt's plan is more like the concept First Lady Clinton, now a senator, and Magaziner came up with a decade ago. Their task force wanted to build on the existing network of private health insurance plans, rather than turning everything over to the government.
Their report resulted in a crushing defeat in Congress for President Bill Clinton.
What's most striking about Gephardt's idea is how much of it -nearly half of the annual cost -- goes to finance health insurance now being picked up by employers. Companies would get tax credits for 60 percent of their health costs.
His critics are whispering that one of Gephardt's objectives is to take health care costs off the table as a bargaining issue in labor-management contracts. Union leaders, who largely are united in support of Gephardt's candidacy, would like to be able to get higher wages from companies that save money on health insurance.
The big Gephardt idea, however, is a kind of government Robin Hood concept - robbing rich individuals to pay rich institutions. He would abolish the Bush tax cut and send all the money to corporations, small businesses, Medicare and Medicaid to cover 97 percent of the nation's 41 million uninsured workers.
By doing this, Gephardt put a big "kick me" on his rear. But he got some attention and demonstrated to the rest of the field that he is a wily veteran not to be trifled with.

[Keith_Hixson]

Health Care!

It is an issue in which Capitolism has had its greatest success and its greatest failure. Republicans have not faired well in the arena of Health Care. Since 1960 health care has exceeded the rate of inflation by close 500%. The people hurt the worst are people in the lower middle class who are self-insured. It takes almost 50% of their Salary to provide adequate health insurance. Capitolism has provided the United States with some of the best Medical Care in the World. Capitolism has provided the United States with the most expensive insurance in the world. Something must be done to curb these unreasonable costs of medicine in the United States. Having set on our local hospital board for over six years and presently sitting on the finance committee for four years, I am shocked at the costs of medicine. The Democrats can legitimately make some real ways on the costs of Health Care. I hope the Republicans understand that this can be a real issue and do something serious about this crisis.

Keith

[colmurph]

Yeah! Just what we need! Socialized Medicine! Why stop there? Let's go whole hog and become Communists like the Democratic Party leatership has in their hidden agenda.

[Keith_Hixson]

But, I strongly believe if the Medical Industry doesn't begin to put in some internal controls that the government will. Right now the upper income and upper middle class and the poor have a adequate medical protection. The masses in the lower middle income don't. And, that bothers me a lot. We have to put the skids on medical costs. Or . . . . . the government will force us to do so. Then medicine in the U.S. will become medicore like the rest of the world.


Keith

[Jerry D]

My big personal gripe with Gephardts plan is eliminating the tax cuts to pay for his Idea, If that goes into effect us veterans living on retirement and Disability compensation (we pay for out of our retirement check) would have our Federal withholding each month effectively doubled . And while I am ranting on Disability payments payed for out of the Retiree's check, when is some Presidential Candidate going to take that as his/her issue? my guess "never" because they say it would cost too Much. Hmmmm.

[Gimpy]

cost a HELL of a lot LESS than the LAST tax cut---or the proposed NEXT one also...but, don't forget now--ol Gee-Dubya said---"a promise made is a promise KEPT"---But, he REALLY meant that promise he made to his RICH GREEDY friends in corporate America BEFORE the "promise" made to military veterans!

[SuperScout]

There has already been some progress on the concurrent receipt issue, with payments starting to some later this summer. Now tha the proverbial foot is in the door, look for more to follow.

I agree that while health care costs have risen, putting any governmental control in place is adding to the problem. Case in point: when the government mandated that all group insurance must contain benefits for substance abuse treatment, the cost per person increased by 300% within less than a year. And not surprisingly, treatment centers sprung up all over the land, with a plan that called for 30 days of treatment; and guess what: the insurance would pay for 30 days of treatment. The grossly inflated charges made by these treatment centers only served to drive the costs up higher.

Having spent 25 years in the insurance and investment business, often selling health insurance until I couild no longer in good conscience offer it, and having also spent some time in a treatment center, I know whereof I speak. I simply offer the sad examples of Medicare, Medicaid, and assorted public health care programs as grossly inefficient, corrupt, and inept governmental programs that bode ill for future increases in public health expenditures. Part of our problem nationally is that too many people have adopted an "entitlement mindset."