The Affordable Care Act (ACA/”Obamacare”) is a step toward implementation of a communist health care system, said Hillary Clinton in a Tuesday-published interview with Vox’s Ezra Klein.
Barack Obama advanced the pursuit toward “universal health coverage” with the ACA, said Clinton: “[Obama was] getting us on the path to universal health coverage with the Affordable Care Act.”
Existing federal programs should be expanded in pursuit of communist health care, said Clinton, pointing to Medicare and Medicaid as examples:
I’m for universal health care coverage that is high-quality and affordable for every American, and I think there’s a lot of ways of getting there that I’ve advocated for; to open up Medicare, to open up Medicaid. …
Maybe we would start with something resembling single-payer plus other payers, like some other countries that have universal coverage and are much better at controlling costs than we do, primarily in Europe. …
Our goal should be universal health care coverage. Universal, affordable, quality health care coverage for everybody, bar none.
Clinton also called for state-mandated price controls on medicines.
Public acclimation and dependence on socialistic programs are advantages for the Democrats, said Clinton, describing the ACA as something “people had gotten used to.” Ending such programs, she added, was politically unpalatable:
When it came time to take something away that people had gotten used to, everybody said no. And that’s my larger point about what our goal really is.
You’re gonna tell 50% of America, “You’re no longer gonna have employer-based health care,” you’re gonna have massive resistance by people who are gonna say, “I’m happy with what I’ve got.”
Medicare and Medicaid should be expanded in pursuit of “universal coverage,” said Clinton:
But if you say … we need to lower the age for Medicare … and we need to continue to expansion of Medicaid, we will be at universal coverage. Then once we’re at universal coverage and people know what that feels like. … I think it’s thrilling.
Medicaid has become very popular, even in Republican states, because it does save money and it is a universal program below a certain income level, and it takes care of middle income people. … I think we should be politically, realistically, and aspirationally on continuing the expansion of Medicaid … and making the political case every day for as long as it takes.
A “national plan” for health care would be better than “state-by-state” plans, said Clinton, preferring unitary central-planning at the federal level over state government administration of health care.
At no point did Clinton call for freer markets as a policy measure to improve health care value.
Destruction of the financial viability of health insurance markets is the ACA’s purpose. Eventual economic collapse of health insurance companies in the absence of free market reform wlll be used as a pretense by Democrats and the broader Left to justify a state takeover of health insurance.
Democrats and the broader Left typically deploy incrementalism as a roadmap toward greater state-driven centralization of political power and economic planning.
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