Make no mistake: Obama's half-a-plan health insurance proposal leaves 15 million uninsured.

[Tejanocrat]

The fact that Obama's health care compromise would leave 15 million uninsured according to MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, the Urban Institute's Health Research Center's Director John Holohan, and New America Foundation economist Len Nichols.

Source: http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2007/12/03/so-about-that-15-million-figure-you-ve-been-hearing.aspx

[sniffa]

1. make no mistake, the majority of health plans are fucking shite

there's only one good plan, and it's none of the top tier.

[Tejanocrat]

4. No one's plan matches Kucinich's, but Edwards' is better than Hillary's which is better than Obama's

[ClarkUSA]

15. Not according to Robert Reich, economics guru, former Clinton Labor Secretary and SS Trust trustee

Will someone please explain to me why Paul Krugman has it in for Barack Obama? And why the Times oped page continues to devote its prime real
estate to Krugman’s repeated attack? Here he is again today, for the third time in two months, excoriating Obama for compromising
too much with insurance companies and drug companies in his health care plan, without mentioning that (1) HRC’s health care plan
compromises at least as much, (2) all the leading Democratic plans are basically the same apart from mandates, which would apply
to a tiny fraction of the currently uninsured, and (3) Obama’s may be marginally better than HRC’s if he’s correct in judging that the
most of the currently uninsured couldn’t afford to pay HRC’s mandate anyway.

http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2007/12/krugman-times-oped-page-and-obama.html

[papau]

26. Robert Reich dropped that argument after it was pointed out he was wrong.

[ClarkUSA]

32. Give me a link. Prove it.

I welcome your evidence. Do you have any?

[dtotire]

23. I Would Propose Universal HOSPITALIZATION Insurance

All Seniors have this in Medicare Part A. We would just extend it to everybody. This would be easier to pass than Universal Health Insurace, which would cover doctor visits. (This could be covered at a later date). Additional insurance would be more affordable, for individuals and for business. My guess is that the cost would be reduced by 60 to 70%. It would be financed by a 4% Value-Added tax.

[DemKR]

2. what obama stands for is for-profit NON-universal health care. SHAME

[ClarkUSA]

20. Hillary stands for Universal Insurance (not Universal Healthcare) and has no mandate enforcement.

:shrug:

[papau]

27. She refered to Mass mandate enforcement procedure - but has not described her own

[ClarkUSA]

35. Link? To my knowledge, she's avoided all questions about how she plans to enforce her mandate.

How the hell can anyone like a plan that is drawing such a speculative blank about what has been billed as Hillarycare's cornerstone?

[Evergreen Emerald]

36. go to her website. It is very clear

[ClarkUSA]

40. It's not there. If it's so "very clear" to you, offer up a quote and a link (ergo, proof).

:shrug:

[bigdarryl]

3. So what a lot of americans don't want healthcare forced down there throats by the government......

I work for the state of NJ as a Correction Officer and my plan is free i don't want Hillary or Obama messing with what I have.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[laconicsax]

12. Wow.

[depakid]

16. Actually, I hear that sentiment a lot

It's a very typical American response- and one of hte biggest roadblocks to putting a rational plan in place- something similar to Australia's two tiered system (America would never accept Canadian style Medicare- too egalitarian).

[annie1]

9. they won't. if you have health insurance, yours won't change.

[Tejanocrat]

18. May as well say "Americans don't want Social Security forced down there throats by the government"

and neither Hillary's plan nor Edwards' plan would have any affect on your "free plan" than what Obama's plan would have.

[TeamJordan23]

5. Majority of Dems oppose a mandate. Its a losing issue for you guys. nm

[peoli]

6. New estimates say its actually only 14,997,342

so up yours

[DemKR]

8. lol! pardone moi

[Bluebear]

51. hehehe

[Stop Cornyn]

54. .

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[mrreowwr_kittty]

10. Bullshit

For one thing, the 15M figure includes at least 7 million undocumented residents, who wouldn't be covered under Sen. Clinton's plan either!

Furthermore, we have no idea how many will be uncovered by mandated plans, since we don't know how they will be enforced. If it mirror's MA's results, then we can expect that up to 60% of the uninsured will NOT be covered within a year of the plan, because that's exactly what is happening in Mass. right now.

With mandated auto insurance, you have 15% of drivers who don't have it, despite the rather hefty consequences if they are caught without it. Assuming the strongest possible enforcement of a national health insurance mandate, you can expect the non-compliance rate to be about as high. That would leave, guess what, about 15 to 20 million people uncovered.

[DemKR]

11. i think thecatburgler is just desperate cause his candidate is slipping

[sniffa]

14. experts can spot desperation a mile away

[laconicsax]

17. So why not go

Single-payer system where everyone's covered automatically? Solves the problem of people not being covered and the problem of people not getting mandatory insurance.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

22. I agree. I think single payer would be the best system

And I think that's where we are headed in the next few decades. Right now it will never happen because the industry will fight it tooth and nail and too many Americans have been suckered by the RW "it's socialized medicine!" trope.

[Tejanocrat]

21. Your thoughts on the subject are not as compelling as the thoughts of three world renound healthcare

experts.

Jonathan Gruber, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who Obama approached for health care coverage advice so even Obama presumably finds him credible.

Gruber calculated Obama's 15 million uninsured figure using the same data and assumptions that Harvard economist David Cutler used th help Obama calculate that his plan will cost $50 to $65 billion a year.

Based on Gruber's model (which is an extension of the model which Gruber was hired to make for the Massachusettes plan) Obama's plan wouldn't include quite half of the 45 million uninsured. Obama get's from 23 million uninsured down to 15 million uninsured by imposing a mandate for children (so it's not like Obama's alergic to mandates).

[robcon]

13. Phony OP - make no mistake about that.

I'm no Obama supporter, but EVERY Democratic Presidential contender will sign whatever health coverage bill that comes out of Congress. Obama will sign it, as will Edwards, Clinton or Richardson.

It is Congress, not the president, who writes bills.

[ClarkUSA]

19. Why are you making such a statement when your source makes NO such claim? Quotes:

So I guess I'm right back where I started: 15 million is a very, very rough estimate of how many people might still be uninsured if
Obama's plan became law... Of course, that's only half the story—as the Obama campaign will eagerly tell you. For the last few days,
they have been concentrating on a different argument altogether: that the estimates of their rivals' plans are too optimistic. Austan
Goolsbee, a top Obama advisor who is also an economist at the University of Chicago, has written a memo arguing that Obama's plan
may actually cover more people than either of the rival plans would—once you take into account that the Clinton and Edwards plan
would leave out millions, too.

Is he right? Is this really basically a wash? My best guess on that very important question is coming shortly."

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2007/12/03/so-about-that-15-million-figure-you-ve-been-hearing.aspx

[alteredstate]

24. Obama says this is "a phony debate" . Here are his words;

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/jessicaslider/CBxn

[Tejanocrat]

28. I'm guessing that Obama thinks all debates where he's losing badly are "phony debates" -- before the

candidates' health care plans came out, Obama ranked higher for me than Hillary, and their places are switched over this single issue (frankly, I cannot think of another issue where Hillary is better than Obama, but she clearly is on health care, and that's a huge -- even moral -- issue for me).

[ClarkUSA]

33. Robert Reich: "HRC has no grounds for alleging that O's would leave out 15 million people."

Here's what Robert Reich had to say recently about the differences between the Obama and Clinton plans for SS and healthcare:

First, HRC attacked O's plan for keep Social Security solvent. Social Security doesn't need a whole lot to keep it going -- it's in far better shape
than Medicare -- but everyone who's looked at it agrees it will need bolstering (I was a trustee of the Social Security Trust Fund 10 years ago,
and I can vouch for this). Obama wants to do it by lifting the cap on the percent of income subject to Social Security payroll taxes, which strikes
me as sensible. That cap is now close to $98,000 (it's indexed), and the result is highly regressive. (Bill Gates satisfies his yearly Social Security
obligations a few minutes past midnight on January 1 every year.) The cap doesn't have to be lifted all that much to keep Social Security solvent --
maybe to $115,00. That's a progressive solution to the problem. HRC wants to refer Social Security to a commission. That's avoiding the issue,
and it's irresponsible: a commission will likely call either for raising the retirement age (that's what Greenspan's Social Security commission
came up with in the 1980s) or increasing the payroll tax on all Americans. So when HRC charges that Obama's plan would "raise taxes" and
her plan wouldn't, she's simply not telling the truth.

I'm equally concerned about her attack on his health care plan. She says his would insure fewer people than hers. I've compared the two plans
in detail. Both of them are big advances over what we have now. But in my view Obama's would insure more people, not fewer, than HRC's.
That's because Obama's puts more money up front and contains sufficient subsidies to insure everyone who's likely to need help -- including
all children and young adults up to 25 years old. Hers requires that everyone insure themselves. Yet we know from experience with mandated
auto insurance -- and we're learning from what's happening in Massachusetts where health insurance is now being mandated -- that mandates
still leave out a lot of people at the lower end who can't afford to insure themselves even when they're required to do so. HRC doesn't indicate
how she'd enforce her mandate, and I can't find enough money in HRC's plan to help all those who won't be able to afford to buy it. I'm also
impressed by the up-front investments in information technology in O's plan, and the reinsurance mechanism for coping with the costs of
catastrophic illness. HRC is far less specific on both counts. In short: They're both advances, but O's is the better of the two. HRC has no
grounds for alleging that O's would leave out 15 million people.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/why-is-hrc-stooping-so-lo_b_75191.html

Your OP is full of shit. The source you link to doesn't even back you up. This is another phony debate based on zero credible evidence.
In case anyone doubts Reich's gravitas in these matters, here's his bio:

Robert B. Reich is Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in
three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He has written eleven books, including The Work of
Nations, which has been translated into 22 languages; the best-sellers The Future of Success and Locked in the Cabinet, and his most recent book,
Supercapitalism. His articles have appeared in the New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. Mr. Reich
is co-founding editor of The American Prospect magazine. His weekly commentaries on public radio’s "Marketplace" are heard by nearly five million
people.

In 2003, Reich was awarded the prestigious Vaclev Havel Foundation Prize, by the former Czech president, for his pioneering work in economic and
social thought. In 2005, his play, Public Exposure, broke box office records at its world premiere on Cape Cod.

As the nation’s 22nd Secretary of Labor, Reich implemented the Family and Medical Leave Act, led a national fight against sweatshops in the U.S. and
illegal child labor around the world, headed the administration’s successful effort to raise the minimum wage, secured worker’s pensions, and launched
job-training programs, one-stop career centers, and school-to-work initiatives. Under his leadership, the Department of Labor won more than 30
awards for innovation. A 1996 poll of cabinet experts conducted by the Hearst newspapers rated him the most effective cabinet secretary during the
Clinton administration.

Reich has been a member of the faculties of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and of Brandeis University. He received his B.A. from
Dartmouth College, his M.A. from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and his J.D. from Yale Law School.

http://www.robertreich.org/reich/biography.asp

[Tejanocrat]

57. Reich was speculating that Hillary had no support for the 15 million figure. The TNR piece in the OP

lays out the support, which includes the views of the nation's top health care economists.

[TransitJohn]

25. Make no mistake

It's about getting the fuck out of Iraq!

[Tejanocrat]

30. Except maybe for Hillary, all our candidates will get us out of Iraq. There is a real distinction in

the candidates' health care plans.

[robcon]

31. You are repeating the misstatement, tejanocrat.

Obama will sign whatever health care bill comes from Congress. His plan is nice to have, but he will not veto the plan that is voted on by the Democratic-led Congress.

The 535 members of Congress write the bill, not President Obama.

[Tejanocrat]

53. You pretend the presidential platform is irrelevant. Only a supporter of a candidate with a crappy

platform would suggest such nonsense.

[robcon]

58. Never said it was irrelevant. The platform is important in evaluating the candidate.

As I wrote upthread, I'm not an Obama supporter, but I acknowledge that my candidate, and yours, will sign EXACTLY the same bill as President Obama would.

Perhaps, based on his past voting history as "the good is the enemy is of the perfect," President Kucinich would be the only Democratic candidate who might veto a bill that doesn't contain exactly what he wants - but DK has almost no chance to be president. If Dennis is your candidate and he wins, there will be no health plan law, IMO.

You seem to be creating strawmen arguments (e.g., I believe the "platform is irrelevant") in order to avoid admitting, IMO, that the thread is just an ad hominem based on Krugman's anti-Obama screeds.

update: add DK paragraph

[Stop Cornyn]

29. Obama's health care plan was a big disappointment to me.

[DemKR]

38. there is no plan n/t

[alteredstate]

45. Watch the video:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/jessicaslider/CBxn

[Stop Cornyn]

56. That doesn't help at all.

[ClarkUSA]

34. Your OP is full of shit. The source you give doesn't even back you up. What a phony debate.

Either your reading comprehension skills are really lousy or you're being deliberately disingenous. I'm leaning toward the latter.

[DemKR]

37. what the heck are you talking about?

[ClarkUSA]

41. Read my posts up thread, instead of posting WTF one-liners in the subject line.

Not that you're interested in anything except promoting Mark Penn's daily talking points.... what a tool.

[alteredstate]

46. Have you bothered to check out Obama's response to your phony debate?

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/jessicaslider/CBxn

[Tejanocrat]

59. Self-serving blather is all you've got?

[Czolgosz]

39. I read the source as confirming that MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, the Urban Institute's Health

Research Center's Director John Holohan, and New America Foundation economist Len Nichols all three independently estimate that Obama's plan would leave 15 million without coverage.

That also seems to be the point of the OP.

What's your beef?

[ClarkUSA]

42. No it does not. See Reply #19 for the quotes from the article that bely your and the OP's BS claims

I'll make it easy for you: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=3900569&mesg_id=3900824

Also, read Reply #33 where former Clinton Secretary of Labor and SS Trust trustee Robert Reich debunks this bogus claim backed up by very shaky assertions:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=3900569&mesg_id=3902948

[Czolgosz]

43. I read the whole article. Did you?

[ClarkUSA]

44. Nice try. You're deliberately using BS subject lines to propagate the OP's falsehood.

You're another BS artist with no facts, just one-liner sniggering that proves nothing in the face of facts.

[Czolgosz]

47. Here's an excerpt regarding Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Jonathan Gruber:

It's pretty much conventional wisdom that, without a mandate, a substantial portion of Americans would remain uninsured. But to come up with a figure, I relied heavily on conversations I had with Jonathan Gruber, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Gruber is a highly regarded economist who specializes in precisely these kinds of issues. Although he served in the Clinton Administration and is generally identified with Democrats, politicians of both parties have sought his advice. Back when Governor Mitt Romney was setting up his universal health care plan for Massachusetts, he brought Gruber into the process. Today, Gruber continues to serve on the board of the Connector, which is overseeing the Massachusetts plan.

The reason so many people ask Gruber's advice is that he has developed a model, based on past data, for projecting how various policy changes will affect the number of people who obtain health insurance. It is similar to the model used by both the Congressional Budget Office and the Treasury Department. (You can read more about him in this Washington Post story.) Since all three of the leading Democratic contenders, including Obama, were known to be have sought his input this campaign cycle, I figured that made him a particularly reliable source of guidance.

Gruber told me that his projections showed that, without an individual mandate, a program of very generous subsidies and market reforms would bring in close to half the uninsured population. Adding a child mandate, he said, could bump it to two-thirds. Since Census figures showed around 45 million uninsured, I asked if that meant roughly 15 million would still lack insurance. He said that sounded about right. I put that figure in my story (although, in my quick translation of our conversation, I explained the step-by-step math incorrectly—saying that the starting baseline for coverage without a mandate was one-third, not one-half). I didn't attribute this to Gruber directly, though I'd cited his work elsewhere in the article, since that part of our discussion had been on background. He's since made these views public.

[Czolgosz]

48. Here's an excerpt regarding New America Foundation economist Len Nichols:

And, more important, Gruber's views are hardly out of the mainstream. Over the last few days, I've had the chance to do something I couldn't with that first-day story: consult several other leading authorities. One of them is Len Nichols, an economist who worked on the 1993-94 Clinton health care effort and today heads up the health policy project at the New America Foundation. “Every reasonable model out there ... will show you that the kind of subsidies that we could do, 50 percent or so, are going to get you half," he said. "The way you go from half to 15 is the kid mandate.”

[Czolgosz]

49. Here is an excerpt regarding the Urban Institute's Health Research Center's director John Holohan:

Still, for the purists out there is always somebody like John Holohan, who directs the Urban Institute's Health Research Center and, as best as I can tell, has no direct connection to the presidential campaign. Holohan commands universal respect, too, having worked on these sorts of problems for two decades. And he's pretty much where Gruber and Nichols are on this question. Without a mandate, he told me, “Obama would still leave about 22 million, 23 million, but he has a mandate for children, about 9 million uninsured kids, so assuming you get most of them, you get pretty close to 15 million.”

[Czolgosz]

50. Here's an excerpt regarding Altarum's analyst George Miller and economist Charles Roehrig:

Just to be sure this sentiment wasn't purely a project of Washington group-think, I contacted Altarum, a non-profit health care research institute based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. They hadn't modeled a plan like this specifically and warned that, without more details, they couldn't be precise. But with those caveats out of the way, analyst George Miller and economist Charles Roehrig sent me an e-mail explaining that "We've done some very crude hand calculations that suggest that the estimate of 15 million uninsured under an Obama-like plan (no individual mandate, coverage of all children, incentives) is in the right ball park."

[Stop Cornyn]

52. Wow. That was an old-school bitchslap!

[Tejanocrat]

55. In four parts no less!

[annie1]

60. hot. thanks.