And tell me, how do you expand a program that deals with a couple thousand people to potentially serve 45 MILLION or more and do it "without any new bureaucracy". On this point, I call BS. Pipe dream. A politico with her mouth open.

The Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program can help you meet your health care needs. Federal employees, retirees and their survivors enjoy the widest selection of health plans in the country. You can choose from among Fee-for-Service (FFS) plans, and their Preferred Provider Organizations (PPO), or Plans offering a Point of Service (POS) Product, or Health Maintenance Organizations (HMO) if you live (or sometimes if you work) within the area serviced by the plan.

Some FFS plans are open to all enrollees, but some require that you join the organization that sponsors the plan, which usually involves paying a membership fee. Some plans limit enrollment to certain employee groups. Membership requirements and/or limitations also apply to any Point of Service product the Fee-for-Service plan may be offering.

[...]

Some of our important program features are:

No waiting periods. You can use your benefits as soon as your coverage becomes effective. There are no pre-existing condition limitations even if you change plans.

A choice of coverage. You can choose self only coverage just for you, or self and family coverage for you, your spouse, and unmarried dependent children under age 22. Under certain circumstances, your FEHB enrollment may cover your disabled child 22 years old or older who is incapable of self-support.

A choice of plans and options.

* Fee-for-Service plans
* Plans offering a Point of Service product
* Health Maintenance Organizations

A Government contribution. The Government pays 72 percent of the average premium toward the total cost of the your premium, but not more than 75 percent of the total premium for any plan.

Salary deduction. You pay your share of the premium through a payroll deduction and have the choice of doing so using pretax dollars.

Annual enrollment opportunities. Each year you can enroll or change your health plan enrollment. This year the Open Season runs from November 13, 2006, through December 11, 2006. Other events allow for certain types of changes throughout the year; see your human resources office or retirement system for details.

[...]

Dan Balz of The Washington Post and [link|http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/09/18/in_ways_clinton_healthcare_plan_resembles_romneys_mass_solution/|others] noted that Clinton's plan is in fact remarkably similar to Romney's own much-lauded health care scheme that he proposed for his own state, and which was subsequently enacted into law. Balz notes:

There are differences in some details of the two plans -- the subsidies available for purchasing health care, the size of the tax on big companies that don't offer insurance, the scope of the basic benefits package, the tax credits offered to small businesses to provide insurance. But as Jonathan Gruber, an economist at MIT, told me today, the two plans are "very, very similar."

Gruber advised Romney as governor in the development of the Massachusetts plan and now is a member of a board overseeing its implementation. He said Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards consulted him as they were preparing their proposals this year.

One portion of Clinton's plan provides doctors and insurance companies with incentives to use "privacy -protected information technology." The point is to make health care more efficient and affordable. This subject has been an ongoing legislative issue in Congress for the past few years. Clinton has even worked with her husband's nemesis Newt Gingrich on this.