Clinton unveils details of her health care plan
— -- Determined to avoid the fatal flaws of her 1993 plan, Hillary Rodham Clinton proposed an overhaul of the nation's health care system Monday that would require Americans to buy insurance but allow them to keep what they have.
The front-runner in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination said that under her new plan, the federal government would spend $110 billion a year to help employers and individuals pay for insurance. About half of the money would come from repealing tax cuts and tax breaks for people with incomes above $250,000; the rest would be saved through efficiencies in the system, such as chronic disease management.
"This is not government-run. There will be no new bureaucracy," Clinton said at a medical center in Iowa, scene of the race's first caucuses. "You can keep the doctors you know and trust. You can keep your insurance plan if you like it."
That was an effort to differentiate the proposal from the plan she devised as first lady in 1993. That plan, which called for a new federal bureaucracy to oversee and regulate insurance markets, was killed in Congress the following year.
Clinton unveiled her plan as Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said President Bush wants to achieve universal health care before he leaves office.
Leavitt told the USA TODAY editorial board that Bush will veto a Democratic plan emerging from Congress that would add $35 billion in taxpayer subsidies to the Children's Health Insurance Program over five years. In doing so, Leavitt said, Bush will urge Congress to join him in seeking coverage for all Americans.
"He'd like to see the larger debate begin," Leavitt said. "The very best opportunity we have may well be in the next 15 months."
Clinton was among the last of eight Democratic presidential candidates to lay out her health care plan. The two other leading candidates, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and former North Carolina senator John Edwards, have proposed similar plans, although Obama does not call for a requirement that individuals buy insurance. Edwards has said his plan would cost between $90 billion and $120 billion a year. Obama's plan would cost $50 billion to $65 billion a year.
