Edwards’ proposal for universal health care is, well, more universal. Paul Krugman explains it here. The key point: “The Obama plan doesn’t mandate insurance for adults. So some people would take their chances — and then end up receiving treatment at other people’s expense when they ended up in emergency rooms.”
Via the Sideshow, where Avedon Carol notes, “The least expensive way to handle healthcare is to remove those power-players from the field, and no one who suggests that will be allowed to run for president.”
Also at the site with the Krugman piece, a great quote:
“If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.” Samuel Adams
A man like that deserves to have a good beer company named after him.
as Obama pointed out in the debates last night, even having such a “mandate” doesn’t mean those people will be covered. They’ll still likely take their chances. As in car insurance mandates, health insurance mandates won’t lead to universal coverage because people will choose to ignore the toothless mandate if they can’t afford the coverage.
Obama’s plan focuses more on lowering the burden on families rather than including these mandates in order to pretend we’re reaching universal coverage.
Well, I’m not exactly in love with Edwards’ plan, and both plans are better than what we have now, and I’ll almost certainly vote for the representative of the rich that the Democrats offer in 2008, even if it’s Clinton.
But I’m with Avedon on what we need and what we’ll get with health care.
LOL! Glad to see the Sideshow mentioned here. It’s a great blog. As a bonus, just above the “Good Medicine” entry, there’s a piece on Ray Bradbury and his most famous novel.