So Hillary's plan is to line the pockets of Insurance Companies with the profits from mandatory purchase of health insurance rather than just providing Medicare to all.

It's a first step, and threads the needle of not pissing off the insurance companies too much (like tobacco and oil they'll see the writing on the wall) while also putting us a step closer to 100% universal healthcare. I think it's much more likely to succeed than Edwards's or Obama's plan.

So kneejerk Hillogynist Michael Caine managed to get on the board first with his gratuitous slam at Hillary.

Stunning analysis, Michael. So much more insightful than Ezra Klein's reaction. What was that again? Oh yeah, "Very, very good, indeed. In fact, it's very similar to Edwards' plan."

If you hurry, Michael, maybe you can still get your deep, well-thought-out factual analysis into this afternoon's Drudge Report.

Tax credits? I don't recall Edwards resorting to that nonsense. If this is the best Hillary can do, she's really not worth the time. Once again, a Dem that leads with the compromise instead of with the best solution.

colonpowwow, are you going to grow up soon and stop with the attempt to make Hillary naysayers into woman-haters? Aside from the childishness, your construction would mean either "Hillary female" or maybe "Hill woman". Strange kind of accusation, and as tedious and meaningless as your candidate. If you think you're doing her a favor you're sadly mistaken.

Frankly, I don't want another tax credit to pay for it-- is there an unquestionable guarantee that it will never be reduced or removed, and how many people will lose out on it, and the insurance companies gain from it when there will be thousands who probably won't claim it when they file?

Dan W - Hillogynist is a made up word that I use to define irrational, knee jerk, types who feel they must include personal attacks - you know, "Shrillary," "Bush-lite," "just like Lieberman," you know, all the non-issue oriented "anybody-but-Hillary-and-I'm-sitting-out-the-election-if-she-wins" types in the left and right blogospheres. They are lousy with Hillogynists and they know who they are.

You are apparently confusing my made-up word (not to be further confused with "Billogynists" which would include irrational hatred of the other half of the couple) - with misogynist - which is hatred of women. This is a real word.

If your distaste for Hillary for legitimate reasons (her votes on Iraq War authorization, Patriot Act) etc., have degenerated into "anybody-but-Hillary" hatred, well if the shoe fits . . .

People, including Edwards himself apparently, are being too quick to say that Clinton's plan is just a carbon copy of Edwards'. What the Edwards plan includes that the Clinton plan does not is the creation of a new non-profit structure, called Health Care Markets, that will act as a leverage against for-profit insurance and eventually "evolve toward a single payer approach." Rather than using the economies of scale of a public entity to compete against insurance companies, Clinton's plan seems to allow for-profit insurance companies to continue to charge whatever they want and let people take the increased premiums off their taxes. Isn't this just subsidizing our current system rather than truly reforming it?

this is ANOTHER huge corporate subsidy that will not help the poor/working poor to get healthcare! a FAR cry from the Hilary who started working on universal healthcare years ago! what a jerk!

colonpowwow, way to follow in Hillary Clinton's usage of Rovian methods. Call anyone that disagrees with you or your candidate as being full of hatred rather than actually addressing what was said.

BTW, as was pointed out above the suffix "gynist" of misogynist refers to "women" or "towards women." It is the prefix "miso" that is the part that refers to "hatred of."

The simple fact is that insurance companies and the required staff to file claims as well as the requirement for profits is the predominant cause of rising health care costs. This plan requiring everyone to buy health care insurance is a tax. Only rather than having the tax go to the government it is privatized and going to the insurance companies.

Insurance companies that care only about profit and not about providing needed medical care. Just like Katrina victims, the insurance companies will do everything in their power to not pay out what they are contractually obligated to. They will force people to go to court to get them to pay, meanwhile the medical costs either go unpaid (absorbed by medical providers and passed on to everyone else with higher costs) or paid by the individual with money they can't afford or, worse, sent to collections destroying the person's ability to get loans for housing or vehicles at a reasonable rate.

Try addressing the actual comment rather than making Rovian ad hominem attacks.

Oh and colonpowwow, I don't hate Hillary Clinton. I think she is a fine Senator. I do think she would make a so-so President. Both because of the partisanship her name brings and her history of following the polls rather than showing courage of her convictions.

I do hate that some of her supporters use Rovian tactics like yourself and the fact that she both encourages and uses them herself. It appears that the lessons she learned were the wrong ones. Those methods encourage hatred. Both in people like yourself and her opponents. It is the politics of hatred that she decries but then uses herself. There is a word for that. Hypocrisy.

Excellent point, Dan. I suspect you're right.

Dan, VictorLazlo and oleeb: My understanding (via Ezra Klein) is that the tax credit in the Clinton plan is refundable -- subject to a sliding means test for percentage of family income required to cover premiums. Since refundable tax credits can by definition result in net negative tax liabilities (i.e, subsidies to those with no tax liability), the plan is in principle immune to this particular line of criticism. In practice, of course, everything will depend on where the percentage-of-income cap is set for the credit. There, we can no doubt anticipate legislative battles similar to those over the threshold for the EITC.

jeffbinnc: The Clinton plan reportedly includes a public insurer option (modeled on Medicare) to compete with private insurers, as well as extensive private-market regulation to prevent risk-pool manipulation by selection or price (e.g., mandatory community rating, non-discrimination by demography or pre-existing condition, no right to deny or refuse renewal coverage). Although it employs a slightly different mix of mechanisms than does the Edwards plan to check the market power of private insurers, such a plan does not seem to me to be fairly characterizable as "allow[ing] for-profit insurance companies to continue to charge whatever they want."

Dear Hillogynists - The made up word is a joke, you know, a play on words. It obviously worked to make my point so I'm liking it even more now that I know it bothers your knee-jerk, Hillary-bashin' azzez. (shaky root notwithstanding - gee shaky root - sounds like there could be a good joke in there too, I can't stop myself!). Sheesh. The fact that a word bothers you so much only lets me know that I've hit a nerve. Hey, just consider the source.

Calls Hillary-bashers a made up name = bad.

Calls me Rovian = okay.

Do I have it right, Noah Webster?