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Clinton, Obama pit health care plans

By Christina Bellantoni
February 18, 2008

When Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks out on the campaign trail, one of her best applause lines deals with universal health care. (Astrid Riecken/The Washington Times)

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Photo: On the campaign trail

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton often gets her loudest applause when she talks about her failed health care reform effort, and the candidates' promises to tackle universal coverage have become a major flash point on the campaign trail.

The New York senator says she learned from her mistakes and will give Americans a choice of health care plans, while attacking rival Sen. Barack Obama as having abandoned the core principle of universal care because he doesn't mandate insurance coverage.

Mr. Obama says their plans aren't so different on substance — they both would open the congressional insurance plan to everyone, for example — but lately he has toughened his language. The Illinois senator says the Clinton plan "forces" families to buy insurance, and argues subsidizing health care costs is more important than mandating coverage.

Democratic congressional leaders mostly have avoided getting in the middle of the health care issue.

Leadership aides say privately they expect Congress to start laying the groundwork for the broader health care proposal they would likely have to consider if a Democrat is president in 2009. Among those initiatives are creating an electronic medical-records system to cut costs and making sure health care providers use technology to offer the most-efficient care.

In the meantime, health care has provided for the most heated exchanges on the campaign trail, on television in Wisconsin and in nasty mailers each candidate has sent to voters.

The issue has allowed Mrs. Clinton to showcase her credentials on a key issue and provided Mr. Obama a tangible example of his warning that he's the better choice because America does not want to refight the battles of the past two decades.

Mrs. Clinton says a president would not be able to stand up to special interests and pass a plan unless the president is committed to universal coverage from the start, and she says only a candidate who starts out with a mandated plan to cover everyone will be able to beat the Republicans.

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