WASHINGTON — Mostly blending ideas already embraced by other Democratic presidential candidates, retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark on Tuesday proposed to provide health care for all children and millions of uninsured adults through a sweeping expansion of public programs and generous new tax credits.
Although Clark stressed preventive care more than some of his opponents, the plan fits squarely in the mainstream of the emerging debate among the Democrats on health care.
When fully phased in, Clark's proposal would cost about as much each year and cover a comparable number of people -- almost 32 million of the nearly 44 million Americans without health insurance -- as plans from former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and Sens. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, according to Emory University professor Kenneth E. Thorpe, who has studied the plans.
A main element of Clark's plan -- a requirement that all parents provide insurance for their children -- replicates a recent proposal by Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina.
As with many of his policy proposals, Clark linked his call for health care reform to his experience in the military -- particularly his recovery from combat wounds in Vietnam. "It seems to me that just as our soldiers can't do their jobs without adequate health care, our families shouldn't be expected to do their best jobs without adequate health care, either," he said in a speech in Portsmouth, N.H.
The most distinctive element of Clark's plan is his call for creating a federal commission that would attempt to slow the surge in health-care premiums, which have jumped by more than 10% in each of the last three years.
Clark says the commission would annually identify cutting-edge methods of preventing and managing disease and use the buying power of federal health insurance programs, such as Medicare, to encourage more providers and private health insurance plans to adopt them. At the same time, he would significantly expand Medicare coverage of preventive techniques.
"If we better covered and used diagnostic and prevention services
To reduce the number of uninsured, Clark's plan relies on several principal initiatives.
