CANDIDATES' REACTIONS CANDIDATES' REACTIONS Opponents react to Clinton's health plan:



John Edwards



Edwards was sharply critical, although he said her proposal was "pretty close to a copy" of the plan he proposed in February. The former North Carolina senator said Clinton was wrong to have consulted with insurance and drug companies, an aspect of the plan that Clinton suggested would help it win passage. "I believe that in order to have universal health care, you have to be willing to take on in a serious way the forces ... that have prevented serious reform, specifically insurance companies, drug companies and their lobbyists," Edwards told reporters during a conference call. The Democrat also said he would require the president, members of Congress and all federal political appointees to be stripped of their health insurance unless they pass legislation providing universal health care within six months of him taking office.



Chris Dodd



"While (Clinton) talks about the political scars she bears, the personal scars borne by the American people are far greater," the Democratic senator from Connecticut said. "The mismanagement of the effort in 1993 and 1994 has set back our ability to move toward universal health care immeasurably. We've known what the problems have been for nearly 15 years, and what the solutions could be. What's been missing is leadership that knows how to bring people together and get the job done. To ensure all Americans have affordable health care will take more than leadership that simply knows how to fight - it will take leadership that knows how to bring people together and win."



Barack Obama



"I commend Senator Clinton for her health care proposal. It's similar to the one I put forth last spring, though my universal health care plan would go further in reducing the punishing cost of health care than any other proposal that's been offered in this campaign," the Democratic senator from Illinois said. "But the real key to passing any health care reform is the ability to bring people together in an open, transparent process that builds a broad consensus for change. That's how I was able to pass health care reform in Illinois that covered an additional 150,000 children and their parents, and that's how we'll prevent the drug and insurance industry from defeating our reform efforts like they did in 1994."



Mitt Romney



Romney, a Republican and former governor of Massachusetts, called Clinton's plan "HillaryCare 2.0" and said it's not likely to be more successful than the first version. "Our objectives in health care are to bring down the costs of health insurance for everyone and to get all of our citizens inside the system - to get them all insured," he said in a statement outside St. Vincent's Hospital in New York City. "What her plan does is it relies on government. In her plan, we have government insurance instead of private insurance. In her plan, it's crafted by Washington. It should be crafted by the states. In her plan, we have government, Washington-managed health care. Instead, we should rely on the private markets to guide health care. And in her plan, you see increased taxes. The burden should not be raised on the American people."



Rudy Giuliani



"Let's not have HillaryCare, Hillary in charge of our health care. Let's put people in charge of our health care," Giuliani, a Republican and former New York City mayor, told reporters in Florida. "And the reality is the only thing that brings down cost and increases quality is a large consumer market, not government command and control. Government command and control only increases costs and decreases quality."



Source: The Des Moines Register

Contributing: Thomas Beaumont, The Des Moines Register



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Facebook 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. USA TODAY ON POLITICS: Read a summary of the plan VIDEO: Clinton offers new approach "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." RELATED: Health care drives presidential politics 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. Clinton's plan would mandate that large employers offer health insurance or contribute to a government-run insurance pool. Small businesses would receive tax credits to help them cover employees. Lower-income individuals would be eligible for tax credits to prevent them from paying more than a set percentage of their income on health insurance. They could keep their policies, choose from an array of private plans similar to what federal employees are offered or enroll in a new government-run plan similar to Medicare. CAMPAIGN 2008 PROFILE: Hillary Rodham Clinton Insurers, who helped defeat the Clinton plan in 1994, would not be allowed to discriminate against or overcharge people with expensive medical conditions or risk factors. Karen Ignagni, president of America's Health Insurance Plans, said Clinton's plan includes "important ideas" but also "some of the divisive rhetoric reminiscent of 1993." The plan, like others, is short on details that would be worked out in Congress. For instance, Clinton does not say how she would enforce the mandate that individuals buy insurance. MORE: Health care spending highest in Northeast Health policy experts said Clinton's plan is more centrist than the one 14 years ago because it builds on the current employer-based system. "This is designed to be less threatening to insurers," said Paul Ginsburg of the Center for Studying Health System Change. Republicans criticized Clinton's plan as heavy-handed. Rudy Giuliani's campaign called it the "Clinton-Moore plan" after filmmaker Michael Moore, whose film Sicko lambastes the U.S. health care system and lauds government-run programs in other countries. Mitt Romney called it "a European-style socialized medicine plan." Share this story: Digg del.icio.us Newsvine Reddit Facebook Enlarge By Charlie Neibergall, AP "We can no longer tolerate the injustice of a system that shuts out nearly one in six Americans," Clinton said in a speech at Broadlawns Medical Center in Des Moines. Conversation guidelines: USA TODAY welcomes your thoughts, stories and information related to this article. Please stay on topic and be respectful of others. Keep the conversation appropriate for interested readers across the map.