Edwards unveils, on his website, universal healthcare plan

[DeepModem Mom]

CNN: Monday, February 05, 2007
Edwards unveils universal healthcare plan

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Having made healthcare a centerpiece of his presidential campaign, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards formally unveiled Monday a detailed plan that calls for universal healthcare by 2012.

Posted on his website -- www.johnedwards.com -- the plan would require all businesses to provide their employees with health insurance and all Americans to have it.

"We have to stop using words like 'access to health care' when we know with certainty those words mean something less than universal care," Edwards said in a statement. "We need a truly universal solution, and we need it now."

On Sunday Edwards said he would raise taxes to pay for the plan.

"Yes, we'll have to raise taxes," Edwards said on NBC's "Meet the Press. "The only way you can pay for a health care plan that costs anywhere from $90 to $120 billion is there has to be a revenue source."

http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/blogs/politicalticker/2007/02/edwards-unveils-universal-healthcare.html

LINK TO PLAN: http://johnedwards.com/

[Tom Joad]

1. WTF? Still using insurance companies? We don't need no stinkin'

insurance companies.

Unless, of course, you don't want to incur the wrath of insurance companies on a political campaign, and you consider them an important part of donor pool.

[kath]

32. Right-o. Eliminate the parasitic, blood-sucking insurance companies. SINGLE-PAYER is

the only way to go. Works for EVERY other first-world nation.

[soswolf]

33. Remember that he's no friend of insurance companies...

He made millions taking on insurance companies that were giving people the shaft.
I doubt there'd be too many lining up to be part of his donor pool.

[John Q. Citizen]

2. This is unfortunate. We already spend twice per captita what

Cananda does on health care.

We should already have a single payer fee for service health care system that's twice as good as what Canada has.

It should be a right that isn't tied to your job, but instead is tied to your residency in this country.

Why spend more to get less?

[Alhena]

9. But is it realistic to switch to single-payer midstream?

I think it makes sense to choose single-payer from the outset, but our entire national health care system is based on the insurance-based system. Millions of people have jobs in the private sector sustaining that private insurance system.

IMO, it's simply unrealistic to think there's a chance in the world that we're going to switch from our insurance-based system to a Canadian-style system. To get anything done in Congress, you need 60 votes in the Senate. With all the vested interests- including rich insurance companies but also working class people who work in that system- I don't think a single-payer system could get even 30 votes in the Senate. If the government is going to start running health care, you're going to need a massive new federal burocracy that can't just spring up overnight.

Single-payer is something interesting for policy wonks to discuss, but it's never going to happen in the US.

[antigop]

13. WE ALREADY HAVE SINGLE-PAYER IN THE U.S. ! IT'S CALLED MEDICARE

It just happens to be for people 65 and over.

(Yes, I was shouting.)

And one of the proposals (HR 676) is to open up Medicare for ALL.

That is what Dennis Kucinich is supporting.

[John Q. Citizen]

16. Canada changed. They used to have a private insurence system until they

wised up and switched to a more affordable and workable system.

They run there's provence by provence within a national frame work.

Millions were employed here in factorey jobs just a few years back. NAFTA and CAFTA changed that quick.
If our politicians remain beholden to insurers contributions and quiver when asked to lead, well fuck 'em.

We can change or we can die. Take your pick.

[endarkenment]

20. Yes of course it is. Every other modernn industrial democracy

has single payer not for profit universal healthcare.

[mtnsnake]

3. If he'd raise taxes for his plan, then why would businesses have to provide for it?

Just wondering

[abburdlen]

4. disappointing

A quick read of the 7 page plan it looks to be a collection of minor tweaks and vague promises. I really don't see how this is universal solution.

Show me a plan that transitions us to a single payer solution and I'll show you a plan the American public will be excited about.

[Mass]

5. Disappointing - W/o single payer, the problem will not be solved.

This is little more than what MA has implemented and we see the limits right now.

This plan does not cover the three major issues that people encounter:

1/ How is he going to get insurance plans that are both AFFORDABLE and USEFUL.

2/ There is a major problem with health insurance linked to work. Everybody knows that. It may have worked in the 60s when somebody was working all his life in a company. It does not work anymore.

3/ What about people with preexisting conditions? People with high blood pressure, diabetis, ... who are not disabled. How does this help them find an insurance?

[sandnsea]

8. refundable tax credits

Actually, go read the web site because it's a lot more thoughtful than what the article indicates. The plan at least addresses all the things you mention, and creates a Medicare type system available to everyone - so when it's clear insurance won't work, the federal system will be ready to take it's place. I do not think we are going to step from here to single payer in one leap.

[Mass]

10. Along the same line, I prefer Senator Wyden's plan.

I have a lot of pbs with it, but at least, he understands that you cannot link healthcare insurance and employment, and that there is no sense in having an healthcare insurance that changes when people change jobs. It is a good first step in the right direction.

[sandnsea]

12. Health Markets = Wyden's regional pools

They both create insurance choices. It looks as if Wyden's plan reimburses health premiums for two years, but after that people will be left on their own to meet insurance requirements. He's relying on the market to keep wages high enough to cover premiums, although there are also subsidies to 400% of poverty which is actually a large number of people. Anyway, there's more similarities between the two than the above article indicates.

http://www.thehealthcareblog.com/the_health_care_blog/2006/12/policy_wydens_h.html

http://johnedwards.com/about/issues/health-care-overview.pdf

[antigop]

14. He's relying on the market to keep wages high enough.....

Oh, that's funny.

Yeah. Sure.

[sandnsea]

18. That's how I read it

I could be wrong. I'm just looking at what's out there and trying to figure out the commonalities and what the thinking is on universal health this year. Oregon already has a subsidized insurance program, it just doesn't have enough money to cover everybody. It gets people who aren't covered first, to get them covered. It has two separate components, employees and everybody else. Seems like Wyden is trying to take it the next step, to try to tackle costs and getting it out from business is a way for individual people to see the costs and maybe take some actions. I don't think the market is going to adjust for what business pays for premiums though, I think that money will just go byebye and people will have an even bigger burden to pay for health care. OTOH, that goes back to premium costs and when all people have to face it directly, then maybe they will demand single payer.

[antigop]

22. I agree with you about people having an even bigger burdern to pay

I think that's the natural consequence.

I also think that a lot more people will have to lose their employer-provided coverage before we get enough people screaming for universal coverage.

I have found that many people who are lucky enough to have good insurance plans have absolutely no idea of what's it like for those who don't.

[endarkenment]

6. Edwards disappoints again.

Another waste of space corporatist-friendly mandatory rent extraction program posing as universal health insurance.

UHC - single payer not for profit medicare for all UHC - is the only proposal the Democratic Party should tolerate.

[DaveinMD]

15. anything that get universal care is good

Dean must have been a sellout too.

[endarkenment]

19. It is corrupt and yes Dean's proposal was bad too.

These proposals just bake in obscene profits for the health care industry, and in doing so will result in inadeqaute expensive care for us while the elites continue to get first class care. I refuse to support these programs and I don't care who backs them. They are wrong on the facts, not on the celebrity status of their proponents.

[DaveinMD]

23. anything

that gets everyone covered is a good proposal. Whether the insurance companies continue to make money is irrelevant.

[endarkenment]

24. Well I really disagree with that.

What is going on right now is a maneuver to divert the momentum toward universal health care - real single payer not for profit universal health care - into a mandatory private insurance purchase scheme. They know that UHC is coming, and this is their last ditch effort to keep their hands in the till.

Everyone will not get covered by decent affordable healthcare. Instead most of us will get shittier and shittier managed care - guaranteed to provide poor service at a huge cost. Because all of these schemes bake in the obscene health management profits, none of them can deliver decent affordable healthcare.

The rich will as always get top tier private programs. The poor will get increasingly inadequate medicaid coverage. Us working families will get covered by romney care plans - a plethora of confusing and generally lousy private plans that will follow the medicare plan D pattern. And good intentioned folks like you will keep grasping at the 'universal' part of it and keep hoping that this fraud will be something that it is not: a good plan that will deliver decent affordable healthcare to all of us.

[DaveinMD]

25. I've been involved in this fight for a long time

And I can tell you that it is never a certainty to happen. Universal health care refers to everyone being covered, not to a particular mechanism. And those that aren't covered don't really care how it occurs.

These are powerful interests you are talking about. That's why I belive Dr. Dean was right that you need to cover everyone and worry about overarching reforms later.

[Ninja Jordan]

7. Edwards was sharp on MSNBC this morning.

[snowbear]

17. That's good because of a lot of his supporters were bummed with his weekend appearance...

According to Big Ed's show today..

I couldn't believe how many Edward's supporters were upset that he didn't go far enough in explaining how his plan would work.

I didn't see it... but it's good if he rebounded on MSNBC this morning!

He's not my #01 choice right now.. but if he won our nomination, I'd support him in a heartbeat!

~~~

[Nutmegger]

11. The Mitt Romney-fication of health care.

:puke::puke:

[cmd]

21. Single Payer is the key to solving the health care problem

Until we address that, we will continue to band-aid the problem - and the makers band-aids will continue to profit from our neglect.

[high density]

26. Edwards does not seem to grasp this point

Tax credits/etc are just more corporatism with money that happens to be flowing through workers. The system is broken to the core and needs a complete overhaul.

[GreenArrow]

27. he grasps it

He lacks the will or imagination to offer anything else.

[cmd]

28. If he "gets it" where is the single payer?

The United States has the most bureaucratic health care system in the world. Over 24% of every health care dollar goes to paperwork, overhead, CEO salaries, profits, and other non-clinical costs. Because the U.S. does not have a system that serves everyone and instead has over 1,500 different insurance plans, each with their own marketing, paperwork, enrollment, premiums, rules, and regulations, our insurance system is both extremely complex and fragmented. The Medicare program operates with just 3% overhead, compared to 15% to 25% overhead at a typical HMO.

www.spanohio.org

[GreenArrow]

29. I suspect he gets it, but, as I said, he lacks the will, imagination

and I might add, courage to pursue it. But maybe your'e right, and he just doesn't believe in a single payer system.

Either way, we get offered this insulting crap.

[liberalpragmatist]

30. This is a very good plan - here's why

Ezra Klein explains how this plan is really a very good one, and offers an excellent opportunity to evolve into a single-payer system:

The Edwards Health Plan

I need to get back to spraying Zicam and complaining about my cold, but I'd be remiss not to offer a quick rundown of John Edwards's just-released health plan (pdf). The short answer: It's good.

Here's how it works: On first blush, the plan is much like the Wyden initiative, though it puts the onus of the responsibility for funding health coverage on employers, a decision I don't quite understand. The employers can satisfy that responsibility by either providing comprehensive care, or helping employees purchase from a menu of insurance options provided by newly formed, state-run "Health Markets."

As of now, the plan doesn't explain how much employers must provide towards health market coverage, but it's a safe bet to assume that it's somewhat less than the total cost of health care, and so the incentive will be for employers to encourage their employees to purchase from the HMs. And that's where things get interesting. The HMs will offer a menu of private options that are totally community rated. The plan "will require insurers to keep plans open to everyone and charge fair premiums, regardless of preexisting conditions, medical history, age, job, and other characteristics." These days, though, community rating is a common enough.

Where the Edwards' plan takes a big step forward is in mandating, along with the private options, that HMs offer "at least one plan would be a public program based upon Medicare." And the intent is explicit: "Health Markets will offer a choice between private insurers and a public insurance plan modeled after Medicare, but separate and apart from it. Families and individuals will choose the plan that works best for them. This American solution will reward the sector that offers the best care at the best price. Over time, the system may evolve toward a single-payer approach if individuals and businesses prefer the public plan."

In other words, the public sector will finally be allowed to compete with the private sector, and consumers will be able to decide which style they prefer. For Democrats, this is a significant step forward. From there, the plan offers the usual mix of sliding subsidies to ensure affordability, individual mandate to universalize coverage, pay-for-performance promises, and public health fixes. You've heard those bits before. What's new, and what's important, are the community rated health markets that include public insurance. Indeed, the plan satisfied every plank of my progressive health reform test from last week.

The plan will cost between $90 billion and $120 billion a year, and according to Edwards, taxes will have to be raised to pay for it. Readers should remember that this is the first full health reform plan from a major candidate in the 2008 election. As such, it has widened the field of the debate, and unless the other candidates want to explain why they lack the boldness of Edwards' plan, they'll have to offer similarly comprehensive proposals. What they will have to match is full community rating, a public insurance option, total universality, scaleability towards more public involvement, and a willingness to propose something comprehensive enough to require revenue increases to fund. In other words, the goalposts have been moved. To the left.

http://ezraklein.typepad.com/blog/2007/02/the_edwards_hea.html

[sandnsea]

31. Like France, public/private

"In France, health insurance is a branch of the Social Security system. It is funded by workers’ salaries (60 percent of the fund), by indirect taxes on alcohol and tobacco and by direct contribution paid by all revenue proportional to income, including retirement pensions and capital revenues. On the surface, it appears that health insurance reimburses medical care providers less in France than in other European countries. However, more than 80 percent of French people have supplemental insurance, often provided by their employers. The poorest have free universal healthcare, which is financed by taxes. Additionally, the treatment costs for those who suffer from long-term illnesses are completely reimbursed."

http://www.info-france-usa.org/atoz/health.asp

[antigop]

34. HA -- I beat Klein -- this is what I said earlier

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=123838&mesg_id=123950

[antigop]

35. But Klein is wrong about this being the first plan from a major candidate

Kucinich co-sponsored HR 676 Medicare for All a long time ago. It's an actual bill that garnered 78 co-sponsors.

So I don't know where Klein is getting his info. He claims, "Readers should remember that this is the first full health reform plan from a major candidate in the 2008 election. " That's pure BS.

[atre]

36. perhaps he doesn't consider Kucinich a "major" candidate

nm

[antigop]

38. well, that's just silly n/t

[Greyhound]

37. Can you say trillion dollar giveaway to the insurance industry? I knew that you could.

I just can't comprehend how so many of the people here, people that pay attention and read and have at least some notion of history, can be taken in by the utterly transparent facade he puts up.

He is a trial lawyer for god's sake, this isn't even worthy of a high school theater performance, let alone a man that has made millions in his profession.

Did you notice how he pretend to not even be aware of the Feingold - Kucinich bill in the House?