Democratic Presidential Candidates & Their Healthcare Reform Plans

I thought it might be a good idea to post some of the Healthcare reform plans supported and put forward by some of the candidates. For now I've got three, I'll post a teaser and then a link to the specific candidate's website, where their respective platforms and more details on their healthcare plans can be found.

I think it's important to remember that incremental steps to improving healthcare access in America are important. I dont believe there could be an overnight reconfiguration of our system that would not have it's own set of pitfalls.

So, that said, no plan we see here presented by likely candidates, will be perfect, but any one of them is an improvement and the beginning of the journey to a better, more efficient system.

Hillary Clinton:

It puts the consumer in the driver's seat by offering more choices and lowering costs. If you're one of the tens of million Americans without coverage or if you don't like the coverage you have, you will have a choice of plans to pick from and that coverage will be affordable. Of course, if you like the plan you have, you can keep it.

Affordable: ... the plan provides tax credits for working families to help them cover their costs...

Available: No discrimination. The insurance companies can't deny you coverage if you have a pre-existing condition.

Reliable: It's portable. If you change or lose your job, you keep your health care.

If you have a plan you like, you keep it. If you want to change plans or aren't currently covered, you can choose from dozens of the same plans available to members of Congress, or you can opt into a public plan option like Medicare. And working families will get tax credits to help pay their premiums.

Small businesses are the engine of new job growth in the U.S. economy but face bigger challenges when it comes to providing health care for their employees. Hillary would give tax credits to small businesses ...

Insurance companies won't be able to deny you coverage or drop you...

Barak Obama

Obama’s plan will provide affordable, comprehensive and portable health coverage for all Americans by:

• ...national health program that will allow individuals and small businesses to buy affordable health care similar to that available to federal employees.
• Making available a National Health Insurance Exchange to reform the private insurance market.
• Ensuring all of the 9 million currently uninsured children have affordable,
high-quality health coverage
• Expanding Medicaid and SCHIP and ensuring they continue to serve their critical safety net function.
• Requiring employers to make a meaningful contribution to the health coverage of their employees.

Obama’s plan will reduce costs and save a typical American family up to $2,500 each year by:

• Driving adoption of state-of-the-art health information technology systems
Improving access to preventive care and chronic disease management programs
• Requiring hospitals to collect and report health care cost and quality data
• Reforming our market structure to increase competition in the insurance and drug markets
• Reducing the costs of catastrophic illnesses for employers and their employees
• Lowering drug costs by allowing importation of safe medicines from other developed countries and increasing use of generics in public programs


John Edwards:

Under the Edwards Plan:

Families without insurance will get coverage at an affordable price.
Families with insurance will pay less and get more security and choices.
Businesses and other employers will find it cheaper and easier to insure their workers.

The Edwards Plan achieves universal coverage by:

Requiring businesses and other employers to either cover their employees or help finance their health insurance.
Making insurance affordable ...
Creating regional "Health Care Markets" to let every American share the bargaining power...