WASHINGTON, DC -- Green Party leaders strongly criticized Sen. Hillary Clinton's health care reform plan, calling it a capitulation to private HMO and insurance corporations and an affront to Americans who lack adequate access to health care.

"Senator Clinton's $110-billion-per-year 'mandatory coverage' plan amounts to a gigantic subsidy for the HMO-insurance industry, while shifting the burden -- and the blame for lack of coverage -- onto people who desperately need health care," said John Battista, MD, former Green candidate for state representative in Connecticut and co-author of his state's single-payer legislation in 1999 (the Connecticut Health Care Security Act).