Clinton unveils plans for universal healthcare
pharmafile | September 19, 2007 | News story | Sales and Marketing |Â Â Â
Hilary Clinton has unveiled plans to introduce universal healthcare insurance in America as part of her campaign to become US president in 2008.
The latest opinion polls suggest she is the current favourite to win the race to the White House, but Clinton has been undone once before over her plans for universal healthcare.
In 1993, when her husband Bill Clinton was president, Mrs Clinton drew up plans for comprehensive coverage taskforce, but Republicans, health insurance companies and the pharma industry lobbies helped kill off the ambitious scheme.
This time, Mrs Clinton has been careful to say that her plans should not be interpreted as government-run healthcare, learning from her mistakes and looking to avoid renewed opposition from lobby groups.
Her new scheme will pressure companies to provide or subsidise insurance for employees, still allowing them choice of insurer. Businesses will be prohibited from selecting only healthy candidates for work, and various tax breaks will be given to smaller scale companies.
Clinton's scheme is forecast to cost $110 billion a year and benefit the 47 million uninsured people presently living in the US, but it has also provoked critics to recall her failed proposals in healthcare 13 years ago.
Her two main rival Democrat candidates Barack Obama and John Edwards have made similar proposals, but all three have been charged with bending to the pressure of profit-making pharma and insurance companies by other Democrats, while also being accused by Republicans of favouring big government.
Polls have demonstrated that healthcare is a constant concern for a large sector of the electorate, particularly those with low income, but critics also suggest that some individuals choose to go uninsured. The population also includes healthy, young people who refuse to make steep insurance payments that subsidise the elderly or infirm.
