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February 27, 2008, 4:00 pm
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Clinton & Obama Skirt Health Costs, Debate Mandates

From the WSJ

Well, a 16-minute discussion on health care is certainly a start,” dapper anchorman and occasional debate moderator Brian Williams said in Cleveland last night, cutting off Clinton and Obama’s long back-and-forth on their health care plans.

Given yesterday’s report that federal spending on health care is likely to double in the next decade, we’d have loved to hear some real nitty gritty about what the candidates are going to do to control costs. But given that the obvious ways to rein them in are politically toxic — “As president, I promise to clamp down on health care!” — it’s not surprising that the candidates mentioned costs only in passing.

Instead, they stuck to the issue they’ve been debating all along: whether everyone should be compelled to buy health insurance. (Clinton favors mandates, Obama opposes them.) At least the candidates got into some real substance on that issue.

Clinton made the free-rider argument: “We will continue to have a hidden tax, so that when someone goes to the emergency room without insurance — 15 million or however many — that amount of money that will be used to take care of that person will be then spread among all the rest of us.”

Obama cited Massachusetts, “where people are being fined for not having purchased health care but choose to accept the fine because they still can’t afford it, even with the subsidies.”

Eventually, Williams tried to cut the candidates off to move onto another subject. But they weren’t done.

CLINTON: About 20% of — about 20% of the people who are uninsured have the means to buy insurance. They’re often young people –

WILLIAMS: Senator –

CLINTON: — who think they’re immortal –

OBAMA: Which is why I cover them.

CLINTON: — except when the illness or the accident strikes. And what Senator Obama has said, that then, once you get to the hospital, you’ll be forced to buy insurance, I don’t think that’s a good idea. We ought to plan for it … and we ought to make sure we cover everyone. That is the only way to get to universal health care coverage. … But if we don’t even have a plan to get there, and we start out by leaving people, you’ll never ever control costs, improve quality, and cover everyone.

OBAMA: With respect to the young people, my plan specifically says that up until the age of 25 you will be able to be covered under your parents’ insurance plan, so that cohort that Senator Clinton is talking about will, in fact, have coverage.

The full transcript is posted here.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/26/us/politics/26text-debate.html?ex=1361854800&en=250cc1249b4dcae1&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

I just don't see how you can force someone to buy insurance.

No kidding.