Okay, then Michael Pollak needs to tell Obama this, and let him know that, because that isn't what BHO himself was just telling people across the US on CNN. BHO stressed (twice, three times?) there was a substantive difference. If there isn't really a substantive difference, as you say Pollak says, then either BHO's insistence that there is means BHO is either misguided about his own proposals (i.e. he doesn't know more about his own stuff than Pollak does), or he is lying.
No fainting in the crowd, from what I have heard so far.
-B.
_______ Yes but people here may as well faint as there isn't much listening to what Obama is actually saying. Obama did not say that there was a substantive difference in terms of the actual range of coverage between the plans. In fact he said the opposite. He granted that people will opt out of or game his system, but he emphasized that exemptions will have to be given in the mandate system (and some of those exempted will then be fined!)
So neither plan is universal in guarantee. But he argued that his plan actually made insurance more accessible and affordable. And if Clinton does not know how she is going to enforce the mandate to buy insurance--she has never responded to Obama's query here--then there is reason to believe that a system which achieves less costly premiums may well bring at the least the same number of people into it through incentives.
Neither is bringing us to the brink of a single payer plan. Both over-rely on the market. Both will force people to choose among plans that many probably will not understand. And both probably will not be able to do much to control costs. They are both market liberals.
In this debate Hilary Clinton did not prove that her mandate plan was superior on the grounds of its universality, i.e., it guarantees everyone health insurance. Her hold on universality collapsed. You didn't see the collapse?
Their important differences are in the realm of foreign policy. About this I don't remember your saying a word.
Abu Hartal
_________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/