Clinton vs. Obama on Health Care

Institute for Public Accuracy

(Steffie) Woolhandler is professor of medicine at Harvard University and a co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program. She said today: “Hillary and Obama are both right. Hillary’s individual mandates would, as Obama charges, financially punish uninsured families. Obama’s plan contains no individual mandate, but would, as Hillary charges, fail to cover 15 million or more Americans. In Massachusetts, where the individual mandates’ high fines on the uninsured will not kick in until the end of the year, few of the state’s quarter million middle-income uninsured have yet purchased coverage.

“Hillary’s, Obama’s and Massachusetts’ mandate model health plans leave the private insurance industry in charge. Hence, the plans will continue to waste nearly one of every three health dollars on the overhead and paperwork that private insurers generate.

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