John Edwards in the NYT: I'm going to take single payer "right through the front door."

I thought john had the same rehashed type healthcare that hillary was touting. I didnt know he was talking single payer!!

Nothing back door about it.

will make all those repubes claiming gov wants to control our health to stfu. The public wants the gov (us) to control our own health care :P I actually think if it goes well his plan will be better then kucinich because the american people are presented with a choice that will eventually push for profit out of the picture.

of its Competitive incentives that basically pit the private plans against an invigorated/revamped Medicare Plan wherre everyone pays 'premiums" according to their ability to pay... So eventually the qualitatively competitive Govt. plan that's much less expensive than the private plans (more heavily regulated under Edwards Plan) succumbs to market competition. Why pay 2-3 times as much to mthe private insurers when you can receive the same or better coverage from the National plan for a much more affordable cost? :)

An option is offered to get insurance through the government. That would open up a government system that competes with the private system. The government system would have two big advantages, size and subsidies. Eventually, if the government run system can outperform private insurance, we'll end up with single payer. But that happens only if the government system can compete. If private insurance turns out to do a better job, why shouldn't they get the business?

This is the only politically possible way to get to single payer. 156 million Americans get employer provided health insurance. They won't be willing to give that up unless a proven better alternative exists.

There's nothing new about what Edwards is saying. Single payer advocates so far haven't been convinced. Maybe they'll believe Edwards. Edwards is more able to discuss this idea because he's not worried about opponents calling his idea a pathway to socialist health care, which in some ways it is.

he came up with a viable strategy to get there

this is a perfect illustration of the media manipulation - you heard what they said, didn't read his original statements on it

plan. He has a plan to do it incrementally because he knows the for profit health care industry will fight like hell if they are cut out of the equation. His plan is to starve them out paving the way for single payer.

His message gets through when he actually gets to talk to his voters.

Talk him up with your friends, email links to YouTube, bring his policies up in conversation. If we want Edwards, it needs to be BY THE PEOPLE!!

I get the feeling in my gut that Edwards
understands the consent of the governed
has been the first and worst depredation
of the Bush junta.

I think maybe he's the one who will
restore constitutional government
to the U.S.

And that is very important.

even with the media clearly trying to marginalize him you would think he would still do better than polling in the teens as I see in some states. He is clearly the most intelligent, articulate and honest...when he speaks you believe its from the heart and not from focus group statistics. This is the only person running who will step in and try to stop the sacking of America...none of the others have the brains or the will to do so.

Go Johnny Go!!

That, my friends, is a powerful frame.

the only thing that doesn't actually go to hands-on health care is a small fee to administer the program (like with Medicaid). However, keep in mind the fee is small in comparison to paying for the overhead of the insurance industry plus the excess profits they capture.

"Of the people, by the people, for the people."

Did I get it correct there?

Well done!

:kick:

Go, John - right through the front door with this!

Go Johnny, go!!

can buy!

x(

:shrug:

Corporations give money to candidates and not for country's best interests.

Words are cheap. Actions are what count.

Just like looking at Edwards' record when he was Senator versus what he's saying now, I'd like to see just how he would implement single payer healthcare "through the front door".

I'd like to know what happens to all the families out there living paycheck to paycheck that suddenly fined or penalized because there is no way they can add another $800/month to their already stretched budget through individual mandates.

Again actions speak a hell of a lot more than words.

oh yeah Obama doesn't want to fine people who think they are healthy enough to top out of the system.

Working families? That's a different story.

to me how Mr. Obama's plan is better? Thank you in advance

Zulchzulu --

See post #38 above by Da Little Kitty. Everyone would pay health care premiums according to financial ability (means test). In other words, the payment structure would be graduated on a sliding scale, with the wealthy subsidizing the poor and government taking up the slack.

That's how it is done in every advanced industrialized nation in the civilized world... excepting our own. And I begin to wonder how civilized we really are when every day people fall through the gaps in our health care system and many fall to their deaths.

Still no question: actions speak louder than words. I give Hillary Clinton major credit for attempting a plan for universal health care at the beginning of her husband's first term. It's a job for policy wonks, which she was and remains. No matter that it went down in flames amidst agonized shrieks of "SOCIALIZED MEDICINE!!!!!" by neocons, repubs and insurance execs. Not to mention the AMA.

The poor, as usual, had no voice.

K & R on this post. Thanks, J Samuel.

Not hi-jacking you here at all, but I'm trying to have a conversation about just this topic in another thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4196985

And I'm going to post your link in my thread as well. Let's talk like grownups here about what the American People need.

"Front door"

:bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

and it is a shame. Let's hope we can get this kind of reform through Congress next year.

LOVE it.

Isn't that what the cons are always preaching...survival of the fittest?

Love it. His plan is truly brilliant.

coverage.

It's been said over and over, even in this thread.

I'm supporting him.

Single payer is the only solution to our current mess. Hillary and Obama both talk about lengthy transitions to universal coverage, and both have said single payer is out of the question.

once again will prove that they represent the best government that corporate America can buy!

No triangulating, no minced words. Instead, it's in-your-face honesty. That combined with the belief that the American people deserve the right to try it and see if they like it. Liberalism at its best.

Bravo, John Edwards!

:applause:

-Laelth

I'm an ambivalent JE supporter, at best, but I absolutely will not ever support HRC or BO, for a variety of reasons that all boil down to "too little, too late." If Edwards sticks to his guns about this, I might vote for him in CA's primary now that DK has pulled out.

and the only candidate with passion that can succeed. It won't be easy fighting those republican corporate bastards.

when HRC finally came out with a plan, many months after he did, the press went all gaga - but it was a weak imitation of his, and did NOT provide the mechanism his does to let the market put the hmo's out of business - or let them stay, as long as they cleaned up their act and provided good coverage people WANTED to pay a premium for

It is a brilliant rope-a-dope strategy that has gotten NO coverage

Hillary also provides a government alternative to private insurance. The rest of what Edwards is saying is a market prediction. That market prediction is true of either plan. One of the things holding up Hillary is the stubbornness of single payer advocates who wouldn't listen to this reasoning.

What Edwards is saying is nothing new. People listening is. Single payer advocates here drop the unreasonable demand that no private insurance can exist. That's something new and remarkable.

he has been saying it since long before HRC copied him

Edwards was probably defending slumlords back then. Edwards was against universal health care as late as 2004. Copied? I don't think so.

Flinging is using words like "Hillarism" and attacking a DUer instead of debating what was said.

go perform an anatomical impossibility on your obnoxious self

Medical treatment...the medical treatment part stays as is...you have a choice individually of Drs. and Hospitals.

... then we need to allow more competition. :)

By that logic, you ought not to waste your time voting in this primary election or any other election for that matter. Your individual choice at the polls counts for nothing, you know. Our next president (election fraud notwithstanding) will ultimately be a joint decision, the collective choice of millions of Americans.

That's the foundation of our entire system of representative democracy -- collective choice. For all its limitations and shortcomings, it just happens to be what we've got.

There are such things as "social goods" that by their very nature can only be purchased collectively, as part of a group. To fairly spread the risks and benefits, this group must include everyone eligible.

Are you independently wealthy? Can you afford the cost of catastrophic health care when cancer strikes, or else some unexpected trauma, like a semi-truck going out of control while you're cruising the highway in your Toyota?

When you can afford to pay several hundred thousand dollars in emergency health costs out of pocket -- then you may freely make your individual choice, and more power to you. Till then, you're stuck in the same leaky boat with all the rest of us propped upon this fragile planet. That would be the ship of our Common Humanity, or some such.

Bon voyage.

Our government spends more taxpayer dollars on health care than any other nation. We have a bastardized hybrid system: regulations and red tape stifle competition and discourage newcomers to the industry, requirements for insurance to cover various treatments drastically increases costs for everyone (another anti-competitive measure), and the consumers' expectation for insurance to pay for everything naturally causes prices to skyrocket (ever check how much your prescription medication would be without insurance?), because they don't have to shop around.

Markets work for other industries to drive down prices and increase quality, and this should be no different. Monopolies are bad and inefficient! In fact, other nations are starting to cut back on their health care systems. There are talks about refusing care for certain individuals who engage in particular activities (smoking, overeating, etc.). How is that fair? They are forced at gunpoint to pay into those systems but can't use them? In a market system, they could choose an insurer that is willing to cover them despite the risks. Some nations go so far as to ban private coverage altogether. That's tyranny! It's not your right to tell them what they can and can't buy.

This is really all about control and vote-buying, but Republicans are no better (they're worse). They don't want to change the system because their campaign contributors benefit from it. With so little competition due to government meddling and intervention, the remaining business reap giant profits, and Republicans want to maintain that. They then pretend that ridiculous (and harmful) solutions, like capping malpractice suits, will somehow cause costs to go significantly down!

Of all the frontrunning candidates from both parties, Obama is my clear favorite. Everyone knows that Democratic nominees have to play lip-service to the base during the primaries; if candidates don't propose a leftist health care plan, they won't be nominated. None of these plans will be implemented, of course (along with most primary-promises, they'll be forgotten), but it's all about securing the nomination.

Obama's rhetoric proposes the least government intervention among the Democrats, and he's the only candiate not making it front-and-center for his campaign. Front-and-center for him is his "transcending and uniting" appearance. Due to this, he seems to be the least likely to want to sign any significant left-wing programs. I can't see him signing any of the disastrous proposed Republican "fixes", either.

Strange as it sounds (this is what attracts many other laissez-faire supporters to his campaign, and there are lots of us), he is the most likely to actually sign moderate market proposals (which if marketed correctly, could easily appeal to both parties, unlike each parties' current proposals).

I'm getting off point. Basically, if you want to have a national health care plan, then instead of spending money to buy votes, spend money to market your own. Just don't force the rest of us to go along with it, please. :)

Edited for typos.

The day DK drops out of the Prez race, JE drops this single-payer bombshell ... I'm loving it.

Go Johnny Go!!! Rock on to the WH over the decomposing corpse of the GOP.

:bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

nation health care ins plan. The other 3 dems are just insisting all have coverage but have not eliminated the middle man who will profiteer off our health care.

Edwards plan revamps and increases Medicare and makes it available to EVERYONE with the goal of eventually covering everyone as they see for themselves the differences from for-profit insurance. For-profit will die off as they lose all their customers to the better plan.
Neither of the other two have this as the core base of their plan.

He is our voice.....Truly the Peoples President!

This is absolutely brilliant. It is on a plane higher than we have seen from any politician in decades.

He is so confident in single payer, so certain about what it can do for us, that he is willing to put it in place and go head to head with the for-profit health care industry so we can all see for ourselves and take the power into our own hands.

He isn't trying to sell us anything or promise us anything. He has absolute confidence in us. He knows that on a level playing field we will take the best path. That is all the American people need - a level playing field, a fair chance. He sees his job as giving us the chance to breath, the chance to fight back against the big money interests.

He is going to level the playing field so that we can do the work of fighting back and beating the right wing.

We are going to go right through the front door, together. All of us.

This can work. This is proof positive that Edwards means what he says.

Very smart. The corporations have to compete or quit. Let the corporations knock themselves out. lol. I love it.

Now we are finally seeing some confidence from a Democrat.

We don't support the things we support because of ideology or merely because of our opinions, we support the things we support because they are the best for the American people and because we care about the people and because we are on the same side as the American people, and we are tired of compromising with the corrupt, wealthy, unprincipled and powerful few who are using the country as their personal playground.

Take it to the people.

All we ask for is a fair fight for once, after years of fighting with one hand tied behind our back.

Take it to the people.

Compare that to every pic of Bush holding a baby that is crying and saying "get your fucking hands off." John knows how to hold and love a baby. Love him for that. The man has the right stuff.

And it needs to be single payer NOT FOR PROFIT national health care. Republicans still want to privatize and therefore profiteer off our health care. The hospitals and Doctors don't change, only the health care ins plans.
Corporations by law must make their main objective making a profit for their stockholders...by law. Which means cutting corners and denying coverage and treatments to increase their bottom line. With a not for profit single payer healthcare ins...everyone is covered...nothing else changes except no more profiteering by private ins. companies. Health care industry has an army of lobbyists fighting for their right to profiteer at the expense of our health.
They have milked us for billions and it must end now.

but unfortunately the majority of Americans don't get it. Dennis Kucinich has the only single payer not-for-profit healthcare plan. The insurance industry needs to be taken out of the healthcare equation. They are the middlemen reaping obscene profits off of the sick and dying. Private insurance bureaucracy consumes one third of every health care dollar, yet the three front runners want to keep them in the equation. Clinton and Obama are heavily backed by the insurance industry. I think their plans will benefit the insurance companies more than helping the American people out of this health care crisis.

I wrote to Edwards and asked him to endorse Kucinich's health care bill, HR676 but he declined. I told him I thought he was the one candidate that could beat the Republican nominee in the election and I wanted to support him, but having a single payer not-for-profit healthcare plan was the deciding factor for whom I'd support. I then became a passionate Kucinich supporter.

If Edwards wants to secure the Democratic nominee, he needs to make a bold move and adopt Kucinich's healthcare plan. That would separate him from Clinton and Obama, and bring in all the Kucinich supporters looking for a candidate now that Kucinich is gone. It would prove to the people that he's willing to take on the powerful insurance industry and fight for the most ethical and humane way a civilized society should provide healthcare to it's citizens: single payer *not-for-profit* healthcare.

http://www.pnhp.org/

:kick:
JE is clearly the candidate who supports the people over the corporations. Unfortunately the Party and the MSM have already decided that he is not to be the nominee.

unless it's *not-for-profit* single payer healthcare. Why reward the insurance industry by forcing more people to buy their insurance? They are the middlemen who have no place in healthcare.

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2008/january/add_insurance_indust.php

And you have pre existing conditions? What kind of a means test are they gonna use? What if you're not disabled enough to be on disability, and are too young for Social Security and medicare?

Are they gonna go into just income, or snoop into your assets? What if you have assets that are illiquid and not producing any income, or going down in value?

I need some answers and am not getting them.

there's no other way

Of the people. By the people. For the people.

This man is so breathtakingly common sensical!

:applause:

This has been his plan since it was announce. Look how long it took to get noticed - even by his supporters.
LISTEN to what he is saying about ALL issues folks!
Many in here do - I know - but based on some of the comments here - many don't.

:kick:

Among the top three candidates, his healthcare proposal is one of the more solid ones. I hope he -- and the rest! -- beat back this stupid "socialized medicine" scare!

As a Kucinich supporter since the get-go I periodically touted the Kucinich SINGLE PAYER Advantage to health care over the Edwards plan. Edwards supporters were always quick to tell me that Kucinich's plan was "unworkable" or "not realistic" or "too much too fast".

Of course NOW since Edwards has co-opted that very position on health care just take a look at the comments on this thread. While I'm glad Edwards has "seen the light" from Kucinich's perspective, I am a bit miffed to see this overnight change of heart by his supporters. Like I said, hypocrisy in action, right here on this very thread. Kind of gives one a queasy stomach doesn't it?:puke:

I'm one of those Edwards supporters who basically prefers Kucinich's message and agenda.

The major beef I have had with Edwards is that he has a mandatory pan but did not push single-payer universal health care (a la Medicare for all).

However, Edwards does make sense here. By offering a version of public health care that people can choose, he is at least offering the option of escaping the clutches of the insurance industry. And if enough people buy into that, it could become a defacto version of universal coverage.

We have 47 million people without healthcare. We have many more who are underinsured. We have many who are paying huge premiums. We have people who are stuck in jobs because they cannot go into business for themselves or change jobs because of pre-existing conditions.

Kucinich has dropped out. (I'll admit I liked him a lot.) I want (as many do) to see our healthcare system fixed. It is not working.

So let's just celebrate that
1) the media has covered Edwards' statement
2) people are rallying behind Edwards' plan

First off one of the reasons (not all, but an important one) I supported Kucinich over Edwards was the fact the Kucinich was offering a better plan to cover ALL Americans. I took a lot of flack from Edwards supporters on this site who told me the Kucinich plan was not doable and therefore they believed the Edwards plan was better. Now all of a sudden, Kucinich drops out, Edwards co-opts the Kucinich plan of Single Payer Health Care, and Edwards supports all of a sudden think it's a brilliant idea and they're pleased as pigs in shit that Edwards is touting it, where before - when it was the Kucinich plan, it was blasted as not do-able, would never get through congress...yadda yadda yadda. I was just pointing out the hypocrisy I am seeing amongst the Edwards supporters who said one thing when it was the Kucinich plan, but then changed views and thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread once Edwards co-opted it....and now we can move on.

I think you should find satisfaction that you were right all along.

Now be happy that they agree with you. That's all I was trying to say.

Edwards is predicting that market forces would turn a government run health care plan into single payer. He's not for getting rid of private health insurance.

The Medicare buy-in option was there then.

It's a smart move because the people will dump their crappy HMOs and buy Medicare.

It would be entertaining to watch the "free market" advocates whine about having to actually compete in a competitive market.

Not a full-out, passionate supporter, but I much prefer Edwards over the other two.

Having said that, I have to say that I've been a little confused over Edwards' health care proposal and exactly what his true feelings are with regard to single-payer. There seems to be some contradiction in some of the quotes I've seen from him on this issue. Today, we have this quote from the NYT, wherein he basically is saying he welcomes a single-payer, government run system if, through the choice offered in his plan, that is what the masses choose.

But then there is this troublesome quote that I read several months ago (Which is one of the reasons it took me so long to choose Edwards. I was really disheartened by this quote.).



http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/016768.php

TPM says they wonder if there could be missing context to the quote and that they certainly hope so - I feel the same way. The two quotes just don't seem to make sense coming from the same person. If someone could offer some clarity on this, I would be relieved to hear it.

:dilemma:


ON EDIT:
Since making this post I have been digging around for quotes from Edwards on single-payer and the more I've seen the more I think there was just something screwy with the way that RS quote was presented. There has to be some missing context or something. I think it's possible he was referring to the way opponents talk about single-payer - the type of excuses they give for being against it. If that's the case, RS really screwed up.

I came across this snippet....


http://issues2000.org/2008/John_Edwards_Health_Care.htm

There were some others I came across too, but basically they all point to Edwards saying he is not against single-payer, just that he feels it's not politically possible to make the leap directly to SP and that giving people the chance to chooose between the two options he presents, he feels that more and more people will see the benefits of the goverment plan while at the same time, their very choice of that plan will shift us more and more to a SP system. (Did that make any sense??)
I feel more satisfied about his thoughts on this now. When I saw the quote from this morning it just sent up alarm bells since I remembered the other quote so well, since it had such a strong impact on me at the time.

Period.

What has come of this political season? Has it become so bad that a politician has to reflect the population? What's next...getting out of the Iran invasion? Increasing taxes on the super-rich? Drug laws that make sense?

Now I'm fired up!

You can't have 'markets' in the traditional sense for products that people don't use, at least if they are lucky. 80% of the population will never get expensively sick, so why leave in the option for them to continue to feed the parasite?

Splitting the risk pool is INHERENTLY more expensive, and we don't as a society have the money to spare.

given the chance!

Along with him being the only Democrat who can beat all of the GOP in months of polling results, this statement is simply the best.

"We’re going to let America decide what health care system works for them."

F&%$@ing amazing. Maybe the best quote I've heard of the campaign by anyone. He actually one-upped Kucinich. I feel that though Dennis thinks Edwards took a lot of his message, and he did, I agree, and has some other issues with John this season, there is no doubt in my mind he should endorse John, say he was wrong about Obama, and that my friends will propel him ahead of Obama and make it a new two person race. Again, an utterly GENIUS quote.

for continuing some of Kucinich's ideas.