Hillary Rodham Clinton is not a
doctor. She just plays one on T.V. In two new Senate campaign ads, the
First Lady promises to improve health care for New Yorkers, and assails
her opponent's criticism of the liberal "Patients' Bill of Rights." Is a
firefight over health policy about to ensue? Let's hope so, because
nothing could be more important to New Yorkers than understanding this
vital issue's impact on working families.
Throughout her career in Washington and Arkansas, Hillary has proven
her enthusiasm for making Big Government even bigger. Now she seeks the
opportunity to enact more policies that would wrest money, freedom and
personal control from working families and deliver them to politicians
in Washington. Nowhere is this more true than in the health care arena.
American medicine remains the highest-quality on Earth. But reforms
still are badly needed. For example, 3,177,000 New Yorkers lacked health
insurance last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. This number
has climbed steadily since Hillary arrived in Washington in 1993. Yet
the "Patients' Bill of Rights" she supports would expand government
regulation and increase the ranks of uninsured families. She also
opposes free-market reforms, such as $3,000 tax credits for uninsured
families to buy private health insurance or expanded, tax-free medical
savings accounts. Such ideas would leave money in people's hands to
invest in the health coverage they desire.
Likewise, many New York seniors struggle to purchase prescription
drugs. Yet Hillary vigorously opposes giving seniors a choice of drug
benefit plans or providing targeted prescription drug assistance to the
neediest of seniors.
Instead, she advocates slapping Canadian-style price controls on U.S.
pharmaceuticals, a dangerous plan that would deny patients the newest
drugs and stop the flow of research and development funds to create
tomorrow's miracle treatments for cancer and AIDS patients, among
others.
The question New Yorkers will face this fall is whether they agree
with Hillary's cure for the ills that beset our health care system. Try
this quiz to see where you stand:
- If you had political power, would you create a Secret Task Force
to redesign the U.S. health care system — representing one-seventh of
our economy — and put doctors and patients under the control of
politicians and bureaucrats?
- Would you design a system of federal fines, penalties, and jail
terms for doctors and hospitals that ran afoul of the health care
rules your Secret Task Force developed?
- Do you believe the U.S. government should establish a National
Health Board and a global budget that would cap health spending, even
if that means people likely would wait weeks and months for diagnostic
tests and surgery, as routinely happens in Canada?
- Would you dismiss the needs of small business owners — many of
them women and minorities — by telling audiences: "I can't be
responsible for every undercapitalized small business in America,"
especially those unable to afford mandatory health insurance for their
employees?
- Do you think Americans should be prohibited from spending their
own money to buy medical services they want or need that aren't
pre-approved by Washington bureaucrats?
- Would you force Americans to pay massive new taxes — upwards of
$100 billion-per-year — for government-directed health insurance that
may not even provide the services they want or need?
- Do you assume that Americans aren't smart enough to make decisions
about their own health care (even though they are presumably smart
enough to choose their senators) and that politicians and bureaucrats
should tell people what they can and cannot do?
If you answered, "yes," to these questions, then you are a true-blue
Hillary fan. All of these elements — and much more — were included in
the 1,342-page Health Security Act designed by the First Lady and her
500-member White House task force in 1993.
If you answered, "no," to these questions, you should examine
Hillary's health record more closely.
"When people ask me if I am discouraged about the defeat of health
care reform, I say, 'Yes, I was disappointed that we were not able to
make more progress,'" Hillary declares on her campaign web site. "But I
learned about what is possible in the political environment. I come from
the school of smaller steps now."
Translation: if she gets her chance, Hillary Rodham Clinton will
impose her top-down, Washington-knows-best health plan — one step at a
time.
Are New Yorkers ready to swallow such a bitter pill?
For more information, please contact:
Grace-Marie
Arnett
President
Galen Institute
(703) 299-8900
gracemarie@galen.org