Hillary Clinton is passionate about a universal health care plan for America. She was a driving force with her husband when he tried to introduce a universal health care plan during his time as president. Unfortunately for the Clinton administration, that plan was viewed largely as a failure but it did get America thinking.
Can the U.S. Health Care Crisis Really Be Fixed?
America soon began to wonder if the Clinton administration was on to something. All other industrialized countries had, and still have, some type of universal health care plan. And now, as Americans are paying some of the highest health insurance rates in history along with millions of uninsured working Americans, many people are starting to want to learn more about how universal health care may be able to finally fix what is now dubbed as "America's Health Care Crisis."
Hillary's American Health Choices Plan
Since the Clinton's knew their previous plan was not a success, Hillary now has a new universal health care plan to propose. This new plan encompasses choices and tax credits. Hillary calls it the American Health Choices Plan and below is a quick review of her five main points.
1. Choose a Public or Private Health Care Plan: Hillary wants American's to have a choice. They can keep their current coverage or choose between a government plan or private insurance. The government plan will be similar to what members of Congress are offered.
2. Reduce Premiums and Stop Discrimination: Hillary wants to reduce premiums with tax cuts and modernizing the health insurance system. And she wants to end health insurance discrimination so no American is denied health insurance
3. Responsibility Sharing: She wants the government and employers to help in the cost of providing insurance. And she also wants individuals to be "required to get and keep insurance." That part may be a hard pill to swallow for a lot of Americans.
4. Coverage that Everyone Can Afford: In this part she outlines various ways that this plan will keep insurance costs down such as individual tax credits, small business tax credits and revising Medicaid to "fix the holes."
5. How the Plan will be "Fiscally Responsible": At the end, Hillary tries to answer the question everyone may think after reading her plan: So, how will America pay for all of this? She proceeds to review how modernization of the current health care system and the tax cuts will mostly offset the costs of the government getting involved in providing health care to more Americans.
Hillary Wants You to Know American Needs a New Plan
Although it would be nice to see more specifics about how all of this will come together and really work, it looks like Hillary has done a good job at putting together a universal health care plan that, with a little tweaking, everyone can accept. The debate here really comes down to whether or not you feel America needs a universal health care system. So, why does Hillary Clinton and a growing number of others feel that America needs her American Health Choices Plan?
The Evidence
Evidence has been mounting that America is lacking not just in health care availability but also in health care in general. A recent study published in Social Science Quarterly says that Americans have stopped growing and now the Europeans and the Dutch are considered some of the tallest in the world and are by far surpassing the American people in height. What does this have to do with universal health care? Well, the scientists feel a lot of our growth stagnation in America may be due to the fact that we don't have a universal health care system and in the countries where people are growing like weeds, they do. The scientists agree that height is strongly dependent on health. Another study by Save the Children found that America has the second worst newborn death rate in the industrialized world. This means that more of our our babies are dying in their fist 24 hours than in other countries. The top countries on the list have a universal health care system. If we have the best doctors and specialists then why is this happening?
What Will You Decide?
Statistics such as the previous ones, along with many other health statistics such as the skyrocketing rate of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease in Americans is what is getting Americans to finally question weather or not affordable access to health care has something to do with our less than best health status in many areas. And Hillary knows that America is questioning this. So now, even though the first Clinton administration health plan was viewed a failure, Hillary wants to provide a new plan that most feel will finally catch us up to other industrialized nations by providing health care to all, regardless of income or health status. She has a good plan but we all still need to decide if we want a universal health care system at all in the U.S., and that will be a much harder decision to make.
