Clinton Laughs Off Health Care Criticism

     Want a good laugh? Suggest to liberal presidential candidate Hillary Clinton that her universal health coverage plan falls in line with socialized medicine.

     Problem is – it’s her doing the laughing.

     So what’s so funny – that Clinton’s health coverage plan mandates all citizens must have coverage (which she calls a choice) or that according to Clinton, it’s now that business wants to have its feet held to the fire and be forced to provide coverage or pay a penalty?

     “[I]t is not only a moral imperative that we try to cover everyone, it is now an economic necessity,” Clinton said on NBC’s September 23 “Meet The Press.” “The employer-based system has lost coverage for many people in the last years. We have jobs being lost in our country because we are not competitive economically. We certainly see that most clearly in industries like the auto manufacturing industry, but there are others that are affected as well.”

     Clinton’s remarks came just a day before United Auto Workers union leaders told employees to walk off the job because negotiations with General Motors (NYSE:GM [2]) fell through. GM wanted to cut some of the $5 billion it spends on its annual health-care bill and according to Reuters, [3]the cuts are necessary “to close a labor cost gap with Toyota Motor Corp (NYSE: [4]TM) and other Japanese automakers operating in the United States they say amounts to more than $30 per hour for the average factory worker.”

     But, that’s the opposite of what Clinton suggested is making the United States less competitive. More health care cost is what is making American auto manufacturers less competitive, not the lack of health care.

     Chris Wallace, host of Fox News Sunday pointed out on September 23 that according to a Harvard economist, 200,000 people would lose their jobs because of the Hillary Clinton health insurance “mandates” where all businesses would have to insure employees or pay a tax. That mandate is what she labels as a “choice.” But, Clinton used different terminology to explain this choice.

     “Well, there is certainly a shared responsibility that goes with having a health care system that both can afford to provide quality affordable health care for everyone and puts responsibility on everyone in our country,” Clinton said on Fox News Sunday.

     Clinton also routinely and falsely claims that there are “47 million Americans without health insurance.” According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the 47 million number [5]includes immigrants with no health insurance. However, Clinton told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on the September 23 “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” that “illegal immigrants would not be covered.”

      With all the health insurance mandates, tax credits and other parts of Clinton’s plan where she said inefficiencies and wastes would be streamlined to make the individual cost more affordable, Clinton still maintained [6]no new bureaucracy would be created to oversee her plan.