There are also plenty of experts who disagree with Hillary, here's one:

"I've compared the two plans in detail. Both of them are big advances over what we have now. But in my view Obama's would insure more people, not fewer, than HRC's. That's because Obama's puts more money up front and contains sufficient subsidies to insure everyone who's likely to need help – including all children and young adults up to 25 years old…In short: They're both advances, but O's is the better of the two. HRC has no grounds for alleging that O's would leave out 15 million people." [Robert Reich, 12/3/07]

I'm another. Unenforceable mandates don't work. Enforceable mandates don't work. Look at auto insurance, there are millions of drivers on the road today without auto insurance, this despite the danger of being ticketed if you are pulled over without proof of insurance. The truth is, if someone can't afford health insurance, and is more concerned with paying for food or rent or utilities or gas, they aren't going to buy health insurance, it is that simple, and Obama realizes this. There are going to inevitably be people under Hillary's plan who still won't be able to afford it after the tax credits and whatnot. Obama realizes this, and because he doesn't want to strap struggling families with the burden of mandated health insurance he is wise enough to make that a part of his plan.

In the end you have to look at two things though:
1) Neither of the two plans are sufficient, because both leave the for-profit system intact. What we really need if we want truly universal health care is something like Kucinich's not-for-profit plan.

2) Both plans have to go through Congress, and will likely look nothing like what they were intended to be by the time they get out, for better or worse. This means that even if Hillary wants a mandate, it doesn't mean it is going to come out with a mandate, so trying to make issues out of minor policy differences like this is pointless at best, and at worst disingenuous.

And to preempt this, I'm going to vomit if I hear anyone mention Paul Krugman's name as some kind of defense of Hillary or attack on Obama, because Krugman has proven himself time and time again to be nothing more than a mouthpiece of the Clinton campaign who echoes her talking points to attack Obama. He has no credibility in my eyes, at least in this race, and I'm sick of people bringing up that biased tool as "evidence" of anything.

Any Canadian or European would laugh at the notion that either plan is "universal". When you have to sign up and pay for something, it's a guarantee that there will be uncovered citizens. In this regard, Obama and Hillary's respective healthcare plans are identical.

I am so tired of the clintons and their minions' distortions about obama's plan. Pathetic. The clinton plan is corporate welfare and wage garnishments. That's very progessive.

Michael A, I feel your point. I think it is pointless to even try to reason with them at this point. If they seriously see Hillary is progressive and anti-corporate, and see Obama as corporate and anti-progressive, they are beyond help. Maybe they have some sort of identity dyslexia where they are thinking of Clinton's policies, yet type and say "Obama", because the diehard Hillary supporters are generally 180 degrees backwards, like it is opposite day everyday or something. Very Orwellian actually.

So Hillary's campaign wants to play the fear mongering game. How Rove like.

Hey Hillary; Beat Obama on your own merits, instead of of using the GOP Scare tactics in Lieu of you being able to win on your own merits.

I say allow us who want so called "socialized" medicine to have it. Repukes that opt-out can pay whatever they get billed. Overruns can be charged to the Repukes just like they are now when indigent care costs are defrayed to the insured. We already have socialized medicine by the mere fact that our market is isolated by big pharma, and that we already pay for the uninsured by premium hikes of 15-20% per year. Only diff is that we can't negotiate prices.

So we wait longer for doctor appointments and ER care--we already do. I've been waiting for three weeks to follow-up on a vasectomy I had in November that still hasn't healed correctly. My appointment is on the 20th of Feb. I hope I don't get a staph infection. Not a good spot to be in as an "insured". I was told to go to the emergency room if I experienced severe burning and redness... Thanks! By then it's to late for some of these bacterial strains...

I suppose I would then be eligible to run as a Democratic Senator!

(nutless in FL--Nelson)

A second point: the headline of this story, is unsurprisingly misleading.

Obama is proposing a plan with "universal coverage". It may be a matter of policy debate whether his plan can achieve that end. If that were the headline the quotes might serve some purpose. He is characterizing the outcome of his policy.

But no one in their right mind says that Obama does not *support* universal health care. He is on record about that many times over. He says he would be in favor of single payer (that would fit the European version of "universal").

Mrs. Clinton calls her plan "universal", but in fact it is "mandated", is it possible that not everyone follows the mandate.

In short, they both support "universal" health care. That's been a plank in the Democratic platform for 50 years.

Both propose plans they think will provide "universal participation" although ONLY time will tell if that turns out to be true

"A health plan that lowers costs by $2500 for a typical family and provides universal coverage."

Where is the pony? Because there's a whole lot of horse manure in that sentence. You can't pay for "Universal Healthcare" out of hope and promises.

You're going to have to do it through employer taxes, employee taxes and/or self-insured taxes like the way we pay for Social Security now. And who is going to administer the plan and ensure everyone participates to keep the free-rider problem down to a minimum? Nor can you let people not participate, because the ones that don't will almost always be the ones who are young and in excellent health; a typical behavior we see in men under 30 when they've got a Cafeteria Plan. How are you going to MANDATE they participate? What will be string that keeps them in?

I'd love to see either candidate answer that. And while Clinton has mentioned mandates, I don't know what the hell Obama is thinking. Public television, with only 5% of it's viewers ever supporting it, has adequately demonstrated that without forced participation, the public will not pay for goods and services.

A universal health care plan is one where everyone shares the costs and the benefits of providing health care for everyone else. A system where we are all in it together and no one is legally entitled to get out of that arrangement. A plan with mandates may not succeed in catching every person every time they try to game the system, but that doesn't mean it doesn't qualify as universal. There are people who comitt tax evasion, that does not mean we don't have a universal income tax. There are children who don't go to school even though they are required by law to do so. Does that mean we don't have universal public education in this country?

The claims that Obama's health care are universal are flat out wrong. Obama's plan is not universal because it does not require everyone to share the costs. If everyone does not pay for it, then it is not universal. Secondly the claim that because it makes it affordable to everyone who wants it, it is universal; is also flawed because absent a mandate or the equivalent Obama's plan will increase costs making health care less affordable, not more. Under Obama's plan there will be more sick people in the system, and more healthy people out of it. That is not universal, that is not even close. If Obama's plan actually lowered costs it might have some credibility to calling itself universal, but since it doesn't, it is absurd to call it that. Any plan that does not solve for the free rider problem can't claim to be universal.

To those who claim the Clinton plan has no enforecement mechanism for a mandate and is therefore not universal, the Clinton plan allows flexibility to decide how best to enforce the mandate and can be easily modified to include a mechanism without contradicting the entire philosophy on which the plan is based. The Clinton plan has details that need to be worked out, but it is workable once they details are decided and it actually stands for the core progressive value of shared costs and shared benefits. The Obama plan is a betrayal of those values which will only be workable when it is altered to be more like the Clinton plan by including some sort of mandate type mechanism. The Obama plan is based on a conservative world view and fails to recognize that the problems in our society, including the health care crisis, stem from the excessive individualism and selfishness on which such a world view is based. The problem is not that people can't afford healh care, the problem is that not everyone is willing to share the costs of ensuring every person in our society is entiteld to live a decent and fufilling life. That will not happen until we acknowlegde that we are all in this together, and that we all must share the costs and benefits of ensuring a society where everyone truly matters and where no one is invisible or left behind.

I may be wrong about this, but I think that there can be a difference between mandated and voluntary health care. Voluntary means a lot of people (young, healthy, peeps who don't care, etc.) will not sign up and they will have no relief if they are injured. If it's mandated then FED GOV will pay for their care despite their refusal to participate. This sux cuz all of our premiums will rise, but they will under Obama's too cuz it won't be as large of a pool. Eventually people will get used to the mandated form and sign on, just like social security, i think.

Gee, Robert Reich! A labor economist, not a health care economist, who has a grudge against the Clintons because he was booted out.

Frankly, Hillary may take more money from Big Pharma, but if Obama would just man up about his measly health care program, I'd vote for him.

Well, I'm not sure who is more of a "tool," the MIT professor of economics (http://econ-www.mit.edu/faculty/gruberj/index.htm) whom you denounced as a "tool" for debunking the Obama health "plan;" or the anonymous comment troll who echoes Obama talking points on this site, while claiming to be World Expert(TM) in health care economics. (That would be you.)

We were enlightened by your claim that mandated services like Social Security and Medicare are utter failures because "mandates don't work." Wow, really boosted your credibility with that genius insight. Yeah, and quoting the godfather of NAFTA, that really worked in your favor, too.

No surprise here: I'll take door number one.

Barack Obama is every bit the consummate political insider that Hillary Clinton has been, with this important difference: since arriving inside the Beltway, he has spent more time promoting himself than his constituents. Declaring this booster of rich white men "anti-corporate" is laughable. But what is not funny is the prospect that he will be as ineffectual in promoting the welfare of the entire nation as he has been of Illinois.

If truth were told, his speeches would fall flat as small beer if he were a white man. He'd get about as much press as John Edwards, who was the real candidate for "change" in this election. But, if Obama wins the nomination fight, I will vote for him in the fall, because he will be the candidate of my party. In the meantime, please, spare us further episodes of your Obama campaign astroturfing. Everybody here is literate, can read the available documentation and analysis and knows you're blowing wax out your ears. By now, it must be painful, even to you.

Thanks.

mp

Im a canadian nurse. I know the health system here very well. My work is 70% of my life.

Scotts is absolutely right when he say "Any Canadian or European would laugh at the notion that either plan is "universal" ...". Our system isnt perfect, our hospitals are old and we lack of a lot of things compared to some top notch modern hospitals in US, which I saw a few times. But the fact is that here, if you fall on an icy sidewalk and break a hip, youll be brought to hospital, have your operation done and then send to a rehab hospital before going back home with full physio and ergotherapy training with a social worker that will help you to get back home safely or in a good environnement for you if you cant live alone anymore.

If something like that happens in US ... Well ... You are screwed.

But the system here is going fast track to be partially privatised, because of the enormous cost. The two programs presented in US are about what we, here in canada, will have in a few years. To me its a shame. Im affraid to see that huge health buisness system taking control of everything. Prices will go trought the roof. Just like in your country. Medication costs will double or triple here probably.

Anyway, politicians here will look closely at your future choices and will adapt theirs on them.

Good luck everyone ...

Hmm. In the debate before super whatever, I heard the Hill say "yes" to universal, and the Big B "no" cause it wasn't necessary or something. On the following Saturday, the Big B said "my universal health care plan" in the media and in advertising. Well, the Big B should be able to call it anything he wants! It would be in line with his platitudes approach to addressing problems. I mean, wouldn't anyone really like to feel good about the future no matter what it is?