Clinton offers health care prescription

By Marcella Bombardieri, Globe Staff

Hillary Clinton today became the latest Democratic presidential candidate to unveil a plan for universal health care, and in her case that means confronting the demons of her spectacular failure to remake the American health care system while First Lady in 1993 and 1994.

Her plan is far less radical this time, building on existing public and private insurance systems to extend coverage to 47 million uninsured Americans while trying to give those who have coverage more choices on health plans.

Like the landmark Massachusetts health reform, Clinton would require people to obtain insurance, while offering subsidies to those unable to afford it. Her plan would offer tax credits to working families and to small businesses. Clinton would require large businesses to provide insurance for employees or help pay for it and would raise taxes on the wealthy to help cover the cost for those less able to pay for it. She put the government's cost at $110 billion a year.

The plan is similar to proposals offered by other Democrats.

Still, Clinton's plan, even before she unveiled it during a speech in Iowa, came under attack from both Republican and Democratic presidential rivals.

Mitt Romney, who helped push through the Massachusetts plan, told reporters that Clinton was reprising "Hillarycare" and drawing inspiration from European socialized medicine.

"In her plan, we have government insurance instead of private insurance," he said. "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."

Barack Obama issued a statement saying it was like the plan he rolled out earlier this year, but that his would go further in cutting costs and that no plan could be enacted without an open process -- a slap at the secretive one that Clinton led as First Lady.

Democrat Chris Dodd was even more direct.

"While she talks about the political scars she bears, the personal scars borne by the American people are far greater," he said in a statement. "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."

Democrat John Edwards not only accused Clinton of copying key parts of his plan, but also tried to drive home again, as Obama has charged, that Clinton is too tied to Washington special interests to pass a health care plan.

"The cost of failure 14 years ago isn't anybody's scars or political fortune, it's the millions of Americans who have now gone without health care for more than 14 years and the millions more still crushed by the costs," Edwards said in a statement.

"So I'm glad that, today, the architect of the 1993 plan has another care proposal -- and if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then I'm flattered. But unless Senator Clinton's willing to acknowledge the truth about our broken government and the cost of health care reform, I'm afraid flattery will get us nowhere."