From the LA Times:

Clinton unveils new healthcare plan

1. Mandating large employers to provide employees with health insurance or contribute to the cost of coverage.
2. Small employers (
3. Individuals up to a certain income level who were not covered through employers would be eligible for tax credits to either buy into the current health benefit program for federal employees, or to buy into a new program which will be based on Medicare.
4. It will be funded largely by savings incurred by “modernizing” the current health care delivery system, and by rolling back the Bush tax cuts.

My initial thoughts? Let’s not create a new program “based on Medicare” until we can actually fix Medicare itself. If Medicare can’t even pay for treating hospital acquired UTIs then I would question the effectiveness of basing a new system on it.

Wouldn’t “modernizing” the way we deliver health care incur a greater expense rather than creating savings? Updating to new technology is always expensive.

Rolling back the tax cuts to pay for this new system has a huge potential for backfiring. First of all, mandating businesses (large or small) to pay for health care benefits is going to cause a huge down turn in the economy, and therefore the tax revenue will not be sufficient – tax cuts or not.

I’m not saying I’m against “healthcare for all” – I’m just wondering how we are going to pay for it.