Clinton unveils final piece of health plan

The proposal includes an individual mandate to buy insurance and limits on health plans' profits.

By Doug Trapp, AMNews staff. Oct. 8, 2007.

Washington -- Thirteen years after then first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton's universal health care plan died, presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D, N.Y.) is pushing the issue on the national stage. Clinton's title is not the only thing that has changed. This time, she's sharing the national spotlight, and her ideas have evolved.

The third and final part of Clinton's overall health reforms -- the American Health Choices Plan, unveiled Sept. 17 -- in many ways mirrors those of her two main Democratic rivals for the presidency. Clinton released proposals to contain health care costs and improve quality earlier this summer.

Like former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, Clinton would require everyone to have health insurance, although Edwards wouldn't do so until the rest of his plan made it affordable. Sen. Barack Obama, (D, Ill.), would cover all children. The three candidates would allow people with employer-sponsored health insurance to keep it, promote health information technology and offer new public health insurance plans designed to be more affordable.

Certain provisions differ. Clinton would make taxable a portion of employer contributions for above-average health benefits for employees earning more than $250,000 a year. While Clinton's and Edwards' plans would offer tax credits to individuals to help them buy insurance, Clinton's proposal also would offer tax breaks to small businesses.

But Clinton is separated from her competition mostly by her experience. Neither Edwards nor Obama have failed at the issue the way Clinton did in 1993 and 1994, when the plan presented by her presidential task force amounted to little more than a 1,200-page report and a lesson in humility. Yet Clinton stuck with the issue.