Do you really want the "next guy" in charge of your healthcare?

The year is 1993 and the then First Lady of the United States, Hillary Rodham Clinton sat before Congress testifying in support of Universal Healthcare Legislation. Many elements of the bill were different  from current healthcare legislation but the core of it bore more similarities than differences:

The Clinton health plan required each US citizen and permanent resident alien to become enrolled in a qualified health plan and forbade their disenrollment until covered by another plan. It listed minimum coverage’s and maximum annual out-of-pocket expenses for each plan. It proposed the establishment of corporate "regional alliances" of health providers to be subject to a fee-for-service schedule. People below a certain set income level were to pay nothing. The act listed funding to be sent to the states for the administration of this plan, beginning at $13.5 billion in 1993 and reaching $38.3 billion in 2003.

...it was less expensive though...



Criticisms then, like now abounded including from many within Clinton's own party.

"...anyone who thinks [the Clinton health care plan] can work in the real world as presently written isn't living in it." ~Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D) NY

It didn't pass. But what if it had? Supporters of the Clinton Administration and those in favor of this particular campaign issue certainly would have been pleased, but for how long? As we know, just eight years later the political tide turned and George W. Bush was elected to two consecutive terms as POTUS. Whether you liked Clinton or not and whether you liked Bush or not the fact remains that had the Clinton bill passed, ultimate oversight of the program would have rested in the hands of a very different sort of administration from 2001-2009.

Our current Administration and the previous do share a commonality in terms of shocking amounts of spending, however the similarities in domestic policy pretty much end there. The point is that the guy/gal and the party or principals you like now isn’t going to be in office forever and quite frankly, I don’t want the next administration in control of my healthcare any more than I want this one in control of it.

With apologies for the advertisements that precede, Penn Jillette expands on the theme in his usual bombastic but humorous strictly libertarian fashion below:

Hmmmm...for some reason I can't figure out how to embed the youtube clip...here's the link:
http://youtu.be/XE_qV5e_lJ0