The Trail: Health Care

• Romney Boasts of Healthcare Plan
  JOHNSTON, Iowa--The latest candidate promising universal health care to voters in Iowa and New Hampshire: former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. That's a surprise. While the Democratic candidates have dueled for months over whose plan is most "universal," the GOP candidates have largely stayed away from that fray. Romney didn't emphasize that his plan would cover everyone when he first announced it, and experts doubt his proposal would expand health insurance to the 47 million Americans who don't have it, because he does not include new monies to finance the program. Earlier this year, Romney was putting some distance between himself and a 2006 Massachusetts law that seeks to create universal health care in that state. Romney had worked hard on the provision and signed it in a lavish ceremony, but some of the elements, such as requiring people to get insurance or face a fine, are not popular among the
• A Clinton Shift in Selling Health Plan
  When Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) introduced her health care proposal, she emphasized its centrist nature: a business-friendly model that would allow consumers maximum choice. But as the first voting for the 2008 nomination looms, Clinton honed in this weekend with a more traditionally liberal aspect of her plan: It would require all people to get health insurance, with a goal of achieving universal health care. "One of my opponents leaves 15 million people out," Clinton said in Sac City on Saturday, taking a swipe at Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) as she addressed a largely rural crowd at a local firehouse. "It's going to actually cascade and more and more people are going to be left out." Her comments were a direct response to remarks Obama made earlier in the day, promoting his health care plan as the one aimed at reducing costs. He told an audience that his health
• Richardson's Riff On Universal Care
  Bill Richardson joined the health care policy fray today with his own plan for universal coverage, taking a veiled shot at his rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination in the process even though the main elements of his plan resemble other proposals that have been presented so far. At a speech in Iowa, Richardson said he would provide coverage for the 45 million Americans who lack it today through a combination of steps: expanding Medicare eligibility to people as young as 55, letting young people keep their parents coverage up to age 25, expanding coverage for children via Medicaid and the S-CHIP program, and providing a sliding-scale tax credit for people buying their own coverage. All Americans would be required to get health insurance, as is the case with the universal coverage plan being implemented in Massachusetts. Richardson says he could do all this without tax increases -- the proposal's