AP and WSJ are reporting the new details of Hillary's healthcare plan to be unveiled in a few hours. Clinton to Offer Health Care Plan http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/09/17/ap4122522.html

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton is unveiling a sweeping health care reform proposal Monday that would require every American to carry health insurance and offer federal subsidies to help reduce the cost of coverage.

The centerpiece of Clinton's plan is the so-called "individual mandate," requiring everyone to have health insurance - just as most states require drivers to purchase auto insurance. Rival John Edwards has also offered a plan that includes an individual mandate, while the proposal outlined by Barack Obama does not. "It puts the consumer in the driver's seat by offering more choices and lowering costs," Neera Tanden, Clinton's top policy adviser, told The Associated Press. "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."

Aides said Clinton believes that an individual mandate is the only way to achieve health care for all. A key component of her plan would be a federal tax subsidy to help individuals pay for coverage. Clinton's plan builds on the existing employer-based system of coverage. People who receive insurance through the workplace could continue to do so; businesses, in turn, would be required to offer insurance to employees, or contribute to a government-run pool that would help pay for those not covered. Clinton would also offer a tax subsidy to small businesses to help them afford the cost of providing coverage to their workers. For individuals and families who are not covered by employers or whose employer-based coverage is inadequate, Clinton would offer expanded versions of two existing government programs: Medicare, and the health insurance plan currently offered to federal employees. Consumers could choose between either government-run program, but aides stress that no new federal bureaucracy would be created under the Clinton plan. Aides said Clinton will propose several specific measures to pay for her plan, including an end to some of the Bush-era tax cuts for people making more than $250,000 per year.

Clinton is sure to court danger from the health insurance industry by proposing several industry reforms. Among other things, she would require insurance companies to provide coverage to all consumers regardless of pre-existing conditions.

WSJ article focuses on the potential consensus of the concept of 'individual mandate' across ideological line... Clinton Health Plan Due

When Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton unveils her health plan today, it is expected to require all Americans to get health insurance. It is a concept that has evolved quietly in recent years and, unlike most ideas for health reform, enjoys support across the political spectrum. The thrust is to get everyone into the health-insurance pool so that healthy people, who are cheap to cover, help balance out the sick, who are expensive. One of Sen. Clinton's top aides says that it is impossible to achieve universal coverage without this requirement, and polls suggest the public supports the idea.

Known as an "individual mandate," it has been proposed by two Republican governors, Arnold Schwarzenegger in California and former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. It is being tried in Massachusetts and considered in at least six other states. It is also an important feature of a health-care-overhaul bill sponsored by Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon. "The individual mandate is central, in my view, to universal coverage," Sen. Wyden said in an interview.

The individual mandate tends to win support from centrists while drawing opposition from libertarian-minded voters, who object to such a sweeping government mandate, and some liberals, who would prefer that the government cover everyone through a single-payer system or that employers pick up more of the tab. "It is really a coalition of center-left and center-right opposed by both of the extremes," said Jonathan Gruber, an MIT health economist who has advised Massachusetts and California. A Democracy Corp. poll in May found that 66% of likely voters would be much more or somewhat more likely to support a candidate for Congress who proposed a mandate combined with subsidies. Just 15% said they would be less likely to support such a candidate. ... The individual-mandate idea has been around for several years. Some Republicans like its message of personal responsibility, noting that when the uninsured get emergency-room care and can't pay the bill, the costs are passed on indirectly to everyone else. "It focuses the responsibility for insurance on the person who is getting care, rather than the rest of us," said Stuart Butler of the Heritage Foundation. Democrats tend to support it, too, as long as there are reasonable subsidies, said Robert Blendon, an expert on health policy and public opinion at the Harvard School of Public Health. "It is a mainstream idea even though we don't have a lot of experience in the U.S. with how it works." The Service Employees International Union, which has yet to endorse a Democratic candidate, is open to the idea. "We support an individual mandate that is affordable and meaningful," spokeswoman Stephanie Mueller said. The idea has been endorsed by John Edwards, one of Mrs. Clinton's rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination, but not by Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, who would require coverage only for children. Mr. Obama's aides have argued that the mandate is less important than subsidies and other measures to make health care more affordable. Yesterday, a spokesman for Mr. Obama said many drivers go without insurance despite mandatory auto insurance laws and noted that in Massachusetts, some have been exempted from the new requirement because of the cost.