Senator Barack Obama presented his sweeping plan for national health care today. The proposal retains current private insurance, offers coverage to the uninsured, and raises taxes. Mike Glover of the Associated Press reports:
Obama said his plan could save the average consumer $2,500 a year and bring health care to all. Campaign aides estimated the cost of the program at $50 billion to $65 billion a year, financed largely by eliminating tax cuts for the wealthy that are scheduled to expire. President Bush wants to make those cuts permanent.
"The time has come for universal, affordable health care in America," Obama said in a speech in Iowa City, at the University of Iowa's medical school.
Read the whole article at the link above. It supplies no details, but on the face of it, the accounting must have been done by Rosy Scenario. "Saving" an average of $2500 per year for consumers is nearly $40 billion right there, and that's before even beginning to cover the estimated 45 million uninsured. You keep your private insurance, but pay less for it? How about free Cadillacs for everyone, too?
Oh, and he will also "ask all but the smallest businesses who don't make a meaningful contribution to the health coverage of their workers to do so to support this plan," he says. "Ask," as in "mandate," he means, of course. Might as well kill the economy while destroying health care, eh?
Of course, Obama is competing for the Democratic base voter, who likes nothing better than a "freebie" that someone else has to pay for. Only in such a party could a complete dismantling of the best health care system in the world be considered a worthy goal.
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2008 Presidential Race, Democrats, Obama, Primaries
Tags: Democrat, Obama, presidential campaign, primaries
