Clinton to unveil universal health plan

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton is unveiling a sweeping healthcare proposal today that would require every American to carry health insurance and offer federal subsidies to help reduce the cost of coverage, her campaign said.

With a price tag of about $110 billion a year, Clinton’s American Health Choices Plan represents her first major effort to achieve universal health coverage since 1994, when the plan she authored during her husband’s first term collapsed.

“It puts the consumer in the driver’s seat by offering more choices and lowering costs,” said Neera Tanden, Clinton’s top policy advisor.

“If you like the plan you have, you keep it. If you’re one of tens of millions of Americans without coverage or don’t like the coverage you have, you will have a choice of plans to pick from and you’ll get tax credits to help pay for it.”

New York Sen. Clinton says she has learned from that experience, which helped put Republicans in control of Congress for years to come.

Aides say that she has jettisoned the complexity and uncertainty of the last effort in favor of a plan that stresses simplicity, cost control and consumer choice.

The centerpiece of Clinton’s plan is the “individual mandate,” requiring everyone to have health insurance -- just as most states require drivers to purchase auto insurance.

Rival John Edwards, a former North Carolina senator, has also offered a plan that includes an individual mandate.

The proposal outlined by Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), another presidential contender, does not have such a mandate.

Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, has already laid out proposals to improve healthcare quality and reduce costs.

She was to release her universal healthcare plan in Iowa, the first voting state.