A week ago Monday Senator Hillary Clinton unveiled her health care reform plan. Called the American Health Choices Plan, Clinton outlined her strategy to bring health insurance to every American. Clinton promises lower insurance premiums for every American, improved delivery of health care, health insurance for all, and a “net tax cut for American taxpayers.” At this point I refer you to my article on How to Know Instantly You’re Being Conned, specifically point 1 (”Common Sense”). She also promises to end insurance “discrimination,” which we’ll return to at the end of this post. Her plan gets a 5 on the Dough-O-Meter (”DEFCON 5″) because the costs are astronomical and the plan’s cost assumptions are suspect. Before I get to the cost of the plan, though, here are the elements of her proposal and some important links so you can check it out for yourself.

Key Provisions of Clinton’s American Health Choices Plan

You can download a pdf version of the plan by clicking on the image to the right or by clicking here. The plan has 5 key provisons:

• Universal Coverage: The plan covers everybody. There are about 47 million Americans without health insurance, and Hillary Clinton’s proposal would provide coverage for all of them. The coverage would come from one of a number of sources she calls the new “Health Choices Menu.” The menu would include a Medicare type option and an option similar to the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program (FEHBP).
• Coverage is Mandatory: Although she calls here plan the American Health Choices Plan, you don’t have a choice. Everybody must be covered by health insurance.
• Eliminate Insurance “Discrimination”: Hillary Clinton wants to prevent an insurance company from setting rates based on the health of the insured, a common and sensible practice in the insurance industry (e.g., bad drivers pay more for car insurance) that she labels as “discrimination.”
• Modernize Health Care to Produce Cost Savings: Clinton believes her plan can deliver health care to you more efficiently than the health care industry, and that her plan will result in annual savings of $56 billion.
• “Net Tax Cut for American Taxpayers”: The plan includes refundable tax credits to help pay for health insurance. In conjunction with the cost savings, Clinton plans on paying for these credits by raising taxes on high income earners to the tune of $54 billion. Apparently, the credits are more than the increased taxes, abracadabra, a net tax cut.

Read more at The Dough Roller