Senator Hillary Clinton has announced a new universal health care plan and she is making this a major campaign promise in her run for the White House. (Based on her lead in the polls, she is a lock for the nomination.) Of course, Clinton also realizes that there will be stiff opposition to such a huge government program. Clinton commented on potential opposition in an AP report:

"A plan is necessary but not sufficient. We've got to have a political consensus in order to withstand the enormous opposition from those interests that will have something to lose in a really reformed health-care system."

The re-launching of the universal health care plan is somewhat curious. Imagine if a motion picture company produced a film that was such a box office failure that the executives and board of director members were fired left and right. Now, imagine if one of the people working at the studio during that time period announced the decision to remake the film that bombed miserably and remake it only a little over a decade after the debacle. How would that be received?

In the early 1990's, Hillary Clinton's health care plan led to the outright devastation of the Democrats in the election of 1994 and, to a significant degree, crippled much of President Bill Clinton's legislative agenda. The House and the Senate ceded control to the Republicans for over a decade as a result. Why would she opt to bring this back to the table? Does she feel the climate changed that much? Will it help her on the campaign or will it derail her? Only time will tell.

On a side note, the original film version of Dr. Doolittle was a major failure for 20th Century Fox and nearly bankrupted the studio. The Eddie Murphy remake was a mega hit.

Maybe they feel that they need to go left to win, but John Edwards and Barack Obama are making huge unforced errors that may score them a few points, but ultimately would doom them in a potential general election.

...Obama spoke about his intentions to expand people's access to health insurance, which would include universal coverage for "reproductive-health services." An Obama spokesman clarified that this did indeed include abortion.

...Elizabeth Edwards, speaking for her husband, presidential candidate John Edwards, said that he proposed a "true universal health-care plan," the Tribune Reports. Specifically referring to abortion, she stated that this plan would cover "all reproductive health services, including pregnancy termination."

Universal health care all by itself is a tough sell to the American people, but universal health care that funds a procedure that half of all Americans view as murder is something else altogether. Either they haven't thought it through or they are not at all serious about passing universal health care. It's a tough sell and you're going to need every vote. By including abortion you've just aligned yourself against all the libertarians, plus the pro-lifers, plus the business interests. Congratulations, you've just killed any possibility of passage.

Oh and that's not all.

Democratic presidential nominee John Edwards is talking tough. If elected president, he promises to forth a bill that revokes congress' health benefits until they pas a universal health care package for the rest of the country. That assumes, of course, that he can convince the congress to pass a bill that would punish itself.

Yes, really. Per CNN, Edwards made the remarks before the Laborers Leadership Convention:

"To show Congress just how serious I am, on the first day of my administration, I will submit legislation that ends health care coverage for the president, all members of Congress, and all senior political appointees in both branches of government on July 20th, 2009 - unless we have passed universal health care reform."

I guess you could call it the "see how you like it" trial by ordeal method of government. You could also call it absurd to the nth degree. What is Edwards thinking?

It would seem that Hillary Clinton's $110 billion dollar a year plan for universal health care has stolen the proverbial thunder from Edwards's own undefined universal health care plan so Edwards is seeking to "one up" Hillary. However, the way you "one up" someone is to simply offer a better and more effective plan. Edwards instead tries to be melodramatic, but ends up looking ridiculous in the process.

Senator Hillary Clinton has laid out her plan for insuring everyone in the the nation and it is populist, expensive and detrimental to small business from the first word:

Addressing a crowd at a medical center in the early voting state of Iowa, Clinton laid out her proposal, with the centerpiece a so-called "individual mandate," requiring everyone to have health insurance - just as most states require drivers to purchase auto insurance. Rival John Edwards has also offered a plan that includes an individual mandate, while the proposal outlined by Barack Obama does not.

Clinton's plan builds on the existing employer-based system of coverage. People who receive insurance through the workplace could continue to do so; businesses, in turn, would be required to offer insurance to employees, or contribute to a government-run pool that would help pay for those not covered. Clinton would also offer a tax subsidy to small businesses to help them afford the cost of providing coverage to their workers.

This plan forces businesses to pay for employee health care even though many small businesses can't afford it. I provide my employees with health care and pay 100% of the employees while they pick up the costs for their families, if I were forced to pay the entire cost, I would have to pull the plug and work for someone else because I could never afford it.

The single most important change to existing health care pricing would be to limit the amount someone can recover for malpractice. Such legislation has been enacted in California and other states and should be considered nationally. The trial lawyers are making a killing and it's costing the rest of us in increased premiums.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the sentiment behind the bold campaign pledge. Stir emotion, think big, utilize the "bully-pulpit." But so often these grand pronouncements turn into little more than hollow, "read my lips" assurances. Today's bluster comes from Hillary Clinton.

"We're going to have universal health care when I'm president--there's no doubt about that. We're going to get it done," the New York Senator and front-runner for the 2008 nomination said.

Of course, Mrs. Clinton assures us that she's smarter now than she was in '93 when the insurance industry easily squashed her first attempt to reform health care. Well, here's hoping that she has some sort of secret strategy, because it will take a good one. While John Edwards has laid out a very detailed plan, which boldly includes raising taxes, Mrs. Clinton continues to downplay the specifics.

The reason she hasn't "set out a plan and said here's exactly what I will do," Clinton said, is that she wants to hear from voters what kind of plan they would favor.

Yikes. The listening tour continues. Does it trouble anyone else that she's promised universal care without having come up with a stated blueprint for how to achieve it?

67-29 which is a veto sustaining majority in the Senate. President Bush has already declared an intention to veto, with some extremely masterful language:

Today, the Senate passed a State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) reauthorization bill that fails to focus on poor children, and instead creates a new entitlement program for higher income households. In fact, the bill specifically eliminates the requirement that states enroll 95% of children in households under 200% of the federal poverty level.

The President will veto this bill because it directs scarce funding to higher incomes at the expense of poor families.

We encourage Congress to send the President a continuing resolution extending SCHIP so coverage for the children who rely on the program will not be threatened. We should take this time to arrive at a more rational, bipartisan SCHIP reauthorization bill that focuses on children in poor families who don't currently have insurance, rather than raising taxes to cover people who already have private insurance.

When the bill passed the House, it did not do so with enough votes to sustain a veto in that body. I would expect that the Democrats would want to put it up for another vote, just to increase the pressure "for the children." This issue is just too easy to demagogue, they won't give up that opportunity.

On the merits of the bill, I'm with the president completely. If the politicians want to do something to help working class families around health care, how about full tax credits for health care? How about coming up with a comprehensive solution to the portability problem? In my opinion this is all about fixing a problem that largely does not exist for the opportunity to beat your political opponent about the head and neck.

Pass SCHIP as it was last year and move on to a real issue.

Despite appearances, the looming battle over CHIP is not just about health insurance for poor kids. The Children's Health Insurance Program funds money that individual states can match to help provide health insurance for poor kids. It's the kind of program that politicians love to pass (for the kids and all that) and it has the side benefit of being a foot in the door for government healthcare. But Bush says he will veto any large expansion of the program. The NYT reports:

Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, said: "The president's senior advisers will certainly recommend a veto of this proposal. And there is no question that the president would veto it.

If he's going to advocate socialized health care, he doesn't have a shot at being president.

Every American should have health care coverage within six years, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama said Thursday as he set an ambitious goal soon after jumping into the 2008 presidential race.

"I am absolutely determined that by the end of the first term of the next president, we should have universal health care in this country," Obama told a conference of Families USA, a health care advocacy group.

The Illinois senator did not provide specifics on his plan for coverage.

We certainly don't have a perfect health care system, but we have the best care there is and I don't understand why a first-term senator with presidential ambitions is advocating such a terrible idea that will have a huge negative impact on the quality of our health care, and raise taxes to ridiculously high levels.

So I got a card in the mail from the "Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority," based in Boston, informing this "Massachusetts Taxpayer" that "beginning July 1, 2007, a new Massachusetts law says that residents age 18 and over must have health insurance."

The card gives a deadline date of Dec. 31 for being able to demonstrate that I have health insurance; those who cannot prove this, the card continues, "will lose the tax benefit of their personal exemption on their 2007 Massachusetts income tax return, worth $219 for an individual. Penalties will increase for 2008."

I'd envisioned health-insurance reform – promoted in this state by then-governor and current GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney -- as a way for government to show a more caring side. How ironic that even as the state government promotes health care for all its citizens, it does so in such a high-handed way.

Barack Obama is now showing why starting a campaign two-years before the election is a dangerous strategy. You're constantly on the stump and need to keep your name and face in the media on a constant basis. To do so, you have to say fresh things and trump your rival. Obama may well have made a blunder by going to the universal health care card too early:

Under Obama's proposal, every American would be required to carry health insurance, and the Illinois senator would create a National Health Insurance Exchange to monitor insurance companies in offering the coverage. In essence, Obama's plan retains the private insurance system but injects additional money into the system to pay for the expanded coverage.

Those who can't afford coverage would get a subsidy on a sliding scale depending on their income, and virtually all businesses would have to share in the cost of coverage for their workers. The plan that would be offered would be similar to the one covering members of Congress.

Health care is a sticky situation with no easy fixes. Businesses will not be happy to carry an increased burden, the public is already paying enough and the insurance industry will lose money, so they'll be against it. Note also that there is no provision in the plan to decrease frivolous lawsuits against doctor's therefore reducing their overall premiums. That is one of the biggest issues and one the trial lawyers want to keep out.

Normally when you read about legislators and corporate leaders working together, it's about tax breaks for big business or no-bid contracts and the like. But today the LATimes has a fascinating story about a surprising political campaign undertaken by some of the nation's largest corporations. Their goal? Universal health care. Yes you read that right.

A total of 36 major companies -- like PepsiCo, General Mills, Safeway and Kroger, and even drug firms and insurers such as Eli Lilly, Aetna and Cigna -- are on board:

Such large firms already provide medical coverage to their employees and have become increasingly frustrated as premiums have increased over the years. That has made them more willing to look to the government for solutions.

"Looking to the government for solutions"? This can only be happening in California, right? Well, yeah, actually. This coalition is using as a model Governor Schwarzenegger's reform plan, which would require all citizens to get insurance, doctors to subsidize care for the poor, and companies to spend a set amount on employee healthcare.

Not surprisingly, the endeavour is already meeting resistance from some other, smaller business like restaurants and retailers. But when you've got major corporations and the leader of the world's fifth largest economy linked up, you're going to have a force to be reckoned with. Do you think health care reform might now have the momentum it's been lacking in recent decades?

Socialist candidate Bernie Sanders has been projected the winner in the Vermont Senate race. Finally, we'll get that national health care promised for so long!

It's coming with the new Congress and Ezra Klein is leading the charge:

But health insurance is not only the inexplicable responsibility of business; it is a big business, which is why the system survives. The medical-industrial complex is a massive, remarkable beast, consuming a full one-ninth of the American economy and offering astonishing profits to many of the participants (indeed, Big Pharma was the most profitable industry in the U.S. from the 1980s until 2003, when energy companies wrested away the top spot). As with any lucrative industry, the winners are resistant to reforms, and they have a formidable army of politically lobbyists, PR specialists and image consultants helping to preserve their position, to preserve a mistake.

Here's what happens if our misguided representatives pass legislation mandating universal health care; the overall quality of health care diminishes throughout the world. It is American doctors and researchers who are leading the charge against diseases such as HIV/AIDS, cancer, hepatitis and nearly every other disease. It will not effect our nation right away as many doctors will stay in the profession because they love it and have established themselves. The effects will begin being felt when those who may have gone into the the field see that universal health care has driven down the salaries and that other fields are more lucrative.

As Hillary introduces her national health care plan today, I see that the media (for the most part) is falling all over itself in praise for Hillary - The Health Care Master. Not on the merits of the plan, you see, but on the fact that she has paid her dues. From ABC News:

But these days, Hillary Clinton isn't running away from the 1994 failure of her health care plan. She's wearing it as a badge of honor - joking that she's got "the scars to show for it. "We set the groundwork in place, so that now, people are saying, 'boy, we wish we had done that back then,'" she told an audience at a health care forum in Carson City, Nev.

"It's really quite remarkable how Mrs. Clinton is turning the health care debacle of 1994 into an asset," said Norman Ornstein, a political analyst at the American Enterprise Institute. "Hillary Clinton has two great things going for her on this issue. The first is, she knows it cold. The second is that she can say, 'I was for dramatic reform before any of the rest of you.'"

The long told tale, as seen above, is that the health care plan that was defeated in 1994 was Hillary's baby, start to finish. But now we have a strange story (The Hillarycare Mythology) just published in the liberal magazine The American Prospect by Paul Starr (a "White House senior health policy advisor at the time") that purports to set the story straight on that particular heath care plan debacle. He claims that Hillarycare I was actually Billcare I - it was her husband's plan all along. Hillary was there just as a salesperson for the plan, and when it courageously failed, fell on the sword to protect her beloved husband.

Someone on the Left doesn't have their story straight. Was Hillary a wronged genius, or was she a convenient fall guy? Pretty soon this Paul Starr character will be found attempting to commit suicide on an Amtrak train somewhere.

One of the common criticisms that opponents level when it comes to the accuracy of the figures claiming the number of people in the country without medical care is that a significant number of the uninsured includes the millions of illegal aliens in the country.

The question was posed towards the Hillary Clinton camp was regarding whether or not universal health care coverage will cover illegal aliens. The response, per CNN:

Senior policy adviser Laurie Rubiner–while acknowledging that undocumented immigrants are a "huge issue" in this country–said, "That's one we're going to have to think through a little bit... " When asked if it would be safe to assume that the Democratic frontrunner, at this point, has no position on coverage for illegal immigrants advisers answered "yes" and said the plan does not "at this point" deal with that issue.

Think it through a little bit? No position? Does "not at this point" mean it is a possibility in the future? How could the possibility of providing government sponsored health care coverage extend to foreign nationals who are in the United States illegally? If anything had the potential of derailing the universal health care coverage proposal would be extended to illegal aliens. As a matter of fact, such a platform would probably derail Clinton's viability to win the presidency.