Health care issue at hand

CLEVELAND - With only one week to go before the Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont primaries, Democratic Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are quickly working to clarify the differences of their stances on several issues - most notably health care.

The only allusion either candidate made to young voters during the debate, which was held in the Bert L. & Ira S. Wolstein Center at Cleveland State University, was during the opening 16-minute back-and-forth contest regarding each candidate's respective universal health care plan.

"My plan will cover everyone and it will be affordable," Clinton said. "Sen. Obama's plan does not cover everyone.  It would leave, give or take, 15 million people out."

Obama, naturally, disagreed.

"I have consistently said that Sen. Clinton's got a good health care plan," Obama said. "I think mine is better."

Obama said the two candidates' health care plans are 95 percent similar, and suggested the main difference between Clinton's health care plan and his own is "the fact that she would force, in some fashion, individuals to purchase health care."

Obama alleged the reason Clinton says more people are covered by her plan is because of a mandate that every individual purchase health care.

"We still don't know how Sen. Clinton intends to enforce a mandate," Obama said. "And if we don't know the level of subsidies that she's going to provide, then you can have a situation which we're seeing right now in the state of Massachusetts, where people are being fined for not having purchased health care but choose to accept the fine because they still can't afford it even with the subsidies."

Clinton explained the difference between a single state attempting health care reform and the entire nation.

"In my plan there is enough money, according to the independent experts who have evaluated it, to provide the kind of subsidies so that everyone would be able to afford it," Clinton said. "It is not the same as a single state trying to do this, because the federal government has many more resources at its disposal."

Clinton had her own perceptions of their health care differences.

"The difference between Sen. Obama and myself is that I know from the work I've done on health care for many years that if everyone's not in the system, we will continue to let the insurance companies do what's called cherry picking, pick those who get insurance and leave others out," Clinton said. 

Clinton focused on Obama's plan to require parents to supply health insurance to their children.

"It's a mandate on parents to provide health insurance for their children," Clinton said. "That's about 150 million people who would be required to do that.

"Parents who get sick have terrible consequences for their children," Clinton said. "So you can insure the children, and then you've got the breadwinner who can't afford health insurance or doesn't have it for him or herself."

Clinton contrasted Obama's mandate with two social initiatives of the 20th century.

"It would be as though Franklin Roosevelt said, 'let's make Social Security voluntary'…or if President Johnson said, 'let's make Medicare voluntary.'" Clinton said.

"About 20 percent of the people who are uninsured have the means to buy insurance," Clinton said. "They're often young people who think they're immortal ... "

Obama quickly interrupted, "which is why I cover them."

Clinton continued, saying she didn't think forcing people to buy insurance once they get to a hospital is a good idea.

"We ought to plan for it, and we ought to make sure we cover everyone," Clinton said. "That is the only way to get to universal health care coverage."

Obama was quick to reply.

"With respect to the young people, my plan specifically says that, up until the age of 25, you will be able to be covered under your parents' insurance plan," Obama said.