Universal Health Care is Coming

Mort Kondracke is the very sharp (he won a Washington Post award in 2006 for most accurately predicting the outcome of that year’s congressional elections) executive editor of Roll Call. He’s happy because the next election will result in universal health care. Though Republicans won’t use the word “universal,” the leading candidates’ plans offer tax credits or deductions that enable everyone to buy private insurance.

Kondracke has problems with “HillaryCare 2.0”. Clinton, he writes, “by creating a Medicare-like government alternative to private insurance and heavily regulating private plans, [will drive people] to the government plan, leading to Canadian-style medicine. As Joseph Antos, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute put it, Clinton has designed ‘a reasonably clever way to prove that the private sector doesn't work and have the government swoop in on a white horse.’” Kondracke adds, “studies document that public satisfaction with Canada's single-payer system is low because of long waits for diagnostic tests and surgery.”

But Kondracke also feels GOP plans are flawed because “tax deductions or credits . . .encourage younger, healthier workers to drop company coverage and buy cheap policies on their own, raising the cost for older workers left behind.” Kondracke favors the plan of Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) that combines mandatory coverage, tax credits and a regulated private market; a plan discussed here earlier.