For Edwards supporters: Has your candidate advocated universal single payer health care?

Not some bullshit scheme with insurance companies involved, but a system like in Canada or Europe. You know, like the systems described in "Sicko".

along side privitized health care. He is going to let the citizen decide just like in the real world. If people want to use the gov single payer thats cool, if they want to buy an HMO thats cool too. The consumer gets to choose and guess what the consumer will choose.

He lets the consumer decide whether they want to support for-profit, bloated HMOs or a cost-efficient system like MediCare. It'll kill off the insurance companies without having to force them out of business ... People will go for MediCare For All and put Cigna et al. out of business.

:woohoo:

.... thank you both for the same answer (<------ *not* a snark)

If he would allow single payer to move forward, why allow it to be vulnerable to Thelma and Louise or Club for Growth MgeaBuck ads to scare the sheeple away from it? By allowing both to go forward, it seems to me that we leave the better-for-the-people system openly vulnerable to those who would have us use the better-for-the-system (big pharm, big insure, big med) system.

but I think Edwards allowing people to choose shoots down the Harry & Louise attacks because no one is forcing you to accept MediCare. People will just see how their co-workers' or neighbors' insurance is so much less expensive and still gives them good care, and they'll dump their HMOs in a hurry. Plus, I can't wait to see the falling stock prices of all those HMOs and big pharma -- a true repudiation by the oft-vaunted "free market". !!!!!

as it sets up competition and lets the individual choose. See post below for more details.

I love the idea of HR 676, but realistically, we can't enact that overnight.

Edwards' plan lets the high and mighty fall and hard -- on their own playing field.

to make our preferred system fail badly?

You KNOW they'll pull out all the stops. And it will probably work.

What we need is an American Tommy Douglas

Edwards isn't going after them -- he is simply telling people that they will be able to purchase into a government option and letting the insurance companies compete with that.

They get to keep on keeping on and We The People decide.

They will always pull out all the stops.

Will we? That is the question.

Under Obama or Clinton's plan, only low income, children or disabled can get into government funded health insurance. Everyone else has to buy private insurance.

That's why he developed a health care reform plan that:

1. Gives EVERYONE, regardless of income, a choice between buying government insurance (Medicare) and private insurance, forcing private to compete with public. They can't. Unless private insureance can provide cheaper coverage than government plans, we will end up with single payer.

2. He requires everyone to have coverage and offers tax credits and subsidies to employers and individuals to help pay for it. Competition between public and private insurance plans keeps insurance costs down and makes it viable.

3. He will enact legislation when he takes office to eliminate all free health care coverage for members of Congress until they provide coverage for all US citizens.

that is a realistic path to Universal.

His plan offers that anyone who wants into Medicare can opt in (and out of the private, tied to work plans).

The goal is to pit the insurance companies against the government (who can negotiate rates/fees nationally as opposed to regionally) and let them see if they can win.

Medicare has a 3% overhead, insurance 30%.

There would be some mighty strong belt tightening having to go on for them to even stay in business, much less win...

thought there are also lots of other reasons I's supporting him, not least of which is his willingness to get the corporate crap out of washington...

this morning in a conversation that he had with Edwards some months ago. His plan to offer Medicare as a choice to companies and unions is intended to starve out the for profits and lead to universal single payer health care.

much less GOP.

Edwards is designed so that it could at a later date be
easily changed to single payer. Covers everyone and is paid for.

Lacking DK in today's FL primary, I voted for Edwards.

:hi:

discussing when or why he should drop out...thanks!! :applause:

So tired of hearing people say "Yeah I really like John Edwards best, but he can't win so I'm voting for whoever" ... Of course he can't win if you don't vote for him!! People amaze me...

Any one can take the perfect positions on issues, especially when it doesn't cost them anything.

When you have confidence, rock solid confidence, and actually want to get the job done, there is no need for "advocating."

Edwards is so confident in the value of single payer, that he is willing to put it head to head with the for-profit health care industry and let the people decide.

Never mind "advocating" an trying to persuade people. Show them. That is what we should be doing with all of the traditional Democratic party principles and ideals. They are not merely a "philosophy" or a "belief system" that we need to "advocate" - that is so weak.

We "advocate," while Republicans accomplish their goals, whatever that takes. It is time we turned that around.

None of our causes require "belief" - unlike the Republican causes - they will prove themselves in practice.

By the way, for all your piffle, you forgot to answer my question.

...... whatever ........

That wasn't "called for," was it? :)

Piffle, eh? So in other words your question was not sincere and innocent, but rather an attempt at drawing people into an argument while disguising your own position on this?

I don't object to the word, I object to the mindset - that taking positions on issues is that important or powerful, and that our role is to select candidates as though they were consumer items on the shelf, as determined by "positions" on "issues." Politics is a little more complex than that approach implies.

There are not two legitimate positions on single payer, and advocating for one of the two imagined positions merely gives strength and solidity to the opposition.

Edwards is guaranteeing single payer, in my opinion. It takes a little imagination to see that, and a thorough grounding in political reality, and an ability to distinguish between what is imagination and what is fantasy.

You avoided answering at first, preferring instead to object to the wording of the OP and thereby obfuscate.

Now you answer more directly by saying I'm advocating.

The answer you gave is weak. Faith based single payer?

It seems to me, if your posit is true, that the correct answer to my question is "No, he has not".

That's not anything I'd argue with. Its the truth (if your posit is correct).

You're trying to argue with someone who only asked a question.

"Yes" is the answer.

Giving a detailed and thoughtful answer, and objecting to the trap you are trying to set, is not "avoiding" your question.

As I said, it was not the word I objected to, it was the thought.