Tag Archives: health care

Obama v. Clinton on Gays II

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I’m actually getting tired of the “who’s better for the gays” debate on Obama and Clinton. I think they’re actually pretty similar when it comes to gay rights.

There’s an interview in the Blade today with Hillary about gay rights. While Obama thinks DOMA should be completely repealed, Hillary isn’t ready to repeal the section that allows states to ignore what other states say about gay marriage.

Ideally, DOMA should be completely repealed. But I do understand Hillary’s support for keeping the part about state recognition, for now. That section of the law does keep some people from supporting the FMA, because they say that as long as states can do what they want, there’s no need for an amendment banning same-sex marriage nationwide. (Same-sex-marriage states can’t “infect” other states, if one were to put it in so unfortunate a manner.) We don’t live in an ideal world.

Also, as I’ve pointed out before, even though same-sex marriage is an issue that’s very important to me personally, there are so many issues that are more important and will affect many more people, such as health care, foreign policy, and a president’s general ability to lead and/or get things done. Same-sex marriage seems fated to remain a state-by-state issue for the foreseeable future.

Some people talk about Bill Clinton’s signing of DOMA in 1996 and say that it wasn’t his idea, that it was forced on him by the Republicans. It’s true that it wasn’t his idea; but he was safely ahead in the 1996 election (which he wound up winning by 9 points) and he didn’t have to sign it. Unfortunately, this was at the beginning of his triangulation-and-Dick-Morris era. He spent no political capital protecting us.

DOMA might very well be the only thing preventing a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage right now, but I’ll always be peeved at Bill for signing it.

Obama and Health Care

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I’m planning to vote for Obama in tomorrow’s primary, but one thing eats at me: his wholly inadequate health care plan. Paul Krugman of the New York Times has written several columns about it, and today’s is one of the most incisive.

Clinton’s plan requires everyone to have health insurance; Obama’s doesn’t. And no matter how affordable his plan makes health insurance, some people still won’t enroll. History has shown this to be true. And if people choose not to enroll until they develop health problems, this raises premiums for everyone else.

According to one paper Krugman cites:

[A] plan without mandates, broadly resembling the Obama plan, would cover 23 million of those currently uninsured, at a taxpayer cost of $102 billion per year. An otherwise identical plan with mandates would cover 45 million of the uninsured — essentially everyone — at a taxpayer cost of $124 billion. Over all, the Obama-type plan would cost $4,400 per newly insured person, the Clinton-type plan only $2,700…. One plan achieves more or less universal coverage; the other, although it costs more than 80 percent as much, covers only about half of those currently uninsured.

Krugman concludes:

If Mrs. Clinton gets the Democratic nomination, there is some chance — nobody knows how big — that we’ll get universal health care in the next administration. If Mr. Obama gets the nomination, it just won’t happen.

Clinton and Obama have debated health care a few times. But I don’t recall Obama ever explaining why his health care plan is better than Clinton’s.

It nags at me.

[Update: some rebuttals are collected here.]