Iowa City, Iowa – Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama on Tuesday offered a plan to provide health care to millions of Americans and more affordable medical insurance, financed by tax increases on the wealthy.
Bemoaning a health care “cost crisis,” Obama said it was unacceptable that 47 million are uninsured and that others are struggling to pay their medical bills. He said the time is ripe for reforming the health care system despite an inability to do so in the past, most notably when rival Hillary Rodham Clinton pursued major changes during her husband’s presidency.
“We can do this,” Obama said in a speech in Iowa City at the University of Iowa’s medical school. “The climate is far different than it was the last time we tried this, in the early ’90s.”
Obama’s plan retains the private-insurance system but injects additional money to pay for expanding coverage. Those who can’t afford coverage would get a subsidy on a sliding scale depending on their income, and virtually all businesses would have to share in the cost of coverage for their workers.
Obama didn’t mention how much his plan would cost, and the campaign refused to provide a total figure. A memo written by three outside experts and distributed by the campaign after his speech said the plan would cost an estimated $50 billion to $65 billion a year once fully implemented. That amount, however, is after deducting what the campaign says Obama’s plan would generate through improved efficiency and other federal savings.
The experts also said Obama could pay for his plan mostly through steps the candidate has already said he would take – allowing President Bush’s tax cuts on dividends and capital gains and on those making more than about $250,000 a year to expire in 2010 instead of acting to make them permanent.
The rest of the $65 billion funding could come by raising taxes on inheritances worth more than $7 million. Many Democrats want to repeal Bush’s elimination of taxes on estates worth more than $1 million. Obama wants the exemption higher.
His proposal would spend more money boosting technology in the health industry such as electronic record-keeping.
