Clinton’s Health Care Plan Elicits Divided Reaction

Presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) recently unveiled her American Health Choices Plan, a proposal to expand health insurance to all U.S. residents. Summaries of two opinion pieces regarding Clinton's plan appear below.

• Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), San Diego Union-Tribune: Clinton's health care reform plan "is the best proposal for reforming our ailing health care system because it covers every American, while also improving health care quality and making insurance more affordable for all," Maloney writes in a Union-Tribune opinion piece. "Reining in the growth of health care costs will not be easy, but this plan makes it a priority by promoting health information technology, low-cost generic drugs and preventive care, while promoting a high-quality system that returns the patient-doctor relationship to the center of the health care equation," according to Maloney (Maloney, San Diego Union-Tribune, 10/11).
• Sally Pipes, San Diego Union-Tribune: "Clinton talks of choices, but her (health care) plan is about limiting them, not expanding them," Pipes, CEO of the Pacific Research Institute and health care adviser to Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, writes in a Union-Tribune opinion piece. Clinton's "individual mandate will lead to new bureaucracy to enforce it, even as it fails to achieve universal care," according to Pipes. The plan also "offers little in the way of keeping spending in check," Pipes writes (Pipes, San Diego Union-Tribune, 10/11).

CNBC on Thursday included a discussion with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) about her health care proposal (Harwood, CNBC, 10/11).

Video of the segment is available online.