Heard Edwards healthcare proposal on Ed Schulz town hall and didn't like it.

I like Edwards. Of the top three contenders for the nomination, he's probably the most substantive.

But when I heard his healthcare proposal, it sounded a like he was going to put more lipstick on the private insurance pig, with some nibbling around the edges of control costs, primarily by introducing electronic record keeping, banning excluding people for pre-existing conditions, and having a parallel public system for those who can't afford to buy into the private system.

In short, he doesn't plan to drive a stake into the heart of the vampire, MBA suits jerking people around, withholding service when they think they can get away with it, putting them on hold till they drop dead if they can't, and raking in massive profits.

I would like to say give these guys one last chance with a very tightly regulated private system, but if they are left in the health insurance business, they will bribe their way out of the regulation or lobby to roll back the reform. Removing them from the equation will have to be like taking a bandage off your arm hair--you've got to tear it off all at once. If you try to do it slowly, and painlessly, one hair at a time, it will never come off.

There is only one thing to be said about private insurance--how many CEOs heads you're going to put on stakes in front of the White House for taking our money and lives.

It would be nice if Democrats had the guts to call out these businesses who are not only hurting average Americans, but hurting other businesses. If someone did their homework, they could probably line up some substantial corporate support to take those bastards down. The same is true of oil companies.

Democrats are always worried about not looking tough, and they think that throwing money at defense will do it. It doesn't.

Better instead to go up to the bigger bullies who are backing up bullies like Bush and Cheney and kick them square in the balls with a pair of pointy toed cowboy boots.

Social Security did not jsut happen... nor was that truly FDRs idea... he implemented it when he had the people behind him and he realized it

Oh and how to make them understand we are tired of the bullshit if the 64K question

Clinton and now Edwards are trying to do it in a way that makes nice nice with insurance companies, but Clinton got handed his head for the effort, and Edwards will likely get the same. those guys think they are in the catbird seat. So we need the equivalent of a BB gun.

gave me pause -- because Ed is generally to the right of me.

I expect that everyone except Kucinich to be cautious.
I think that it is definitely going to be up to us to demand that our health is more valuable than to allow the government to endorse a scam in which we pay people to deny us health care.

one of the sites had a critique of all the democrats health plans when they had that big rally last month. They all said Hillary Clinton had the very best and it was really feasible.

Since she is not going to get the nomination we should all forget how smart she is. Edwards is probably the best candidate, so lets hope he gets it right.

Disclosure: I'm basically hoping for Gore to enter the race and barely have a second realistic choice -- although substantively, Kucinich is clearly the best candidate.

I was skeptical about JE until I heard his health care proposals, which so far are about the best out there.

I agree that keeping private insurers in the health care system is like putting lipstick on a pig. But the thing that's subtle in JE's proposal when it comes to private insurance is the assumption that a public insurance system will drive the private insurance system out of business.

As I understand it, JE proposes creating a standard package that anyone can purchase. All gaming will be eliminated from the system -- previously existing condition clauses, tying employment to health care, trying to kick unhealthy people off insurance. Private insurers can offer it if they want, but an expanded universal public Medicare system will also offer it.

Because the public Medicare system will not pay for exhorbitant executive salaries, stupid advertising, system gaming (eg trying to get rid of the sick), overhead of 25% compared to Medicare's 3%, etc., most people will choose Medicare.

Realistically, the way to kill inefficient corporate control of the health care system is not a direct frontal assault, but simply competing it out of business. Rich people will be free to pay for premium private insurance packages and presumably that's will be the ghetto to which private insurers will be confined.

Because of his health care proposals, JE is now my second favorite after Gore.

to underfund or siphon funds from the government run one.

I heard Edwards describe his proposal on a radio show, and that's what I based my post on. After posting, I went to his website and the written description there is much more blurry and confusing. I can see that the proposal as I understood it is there, but it's not a very good description. I suspect he farmed out the description to some consultant who has done a really bad job. Sounds almost as confusing as Hillary's back in the early 90s. But I'll trust that what he was describing on the radio is the real proposal, because he is smart and articulate enough to understand and express what he has in mind.

You are also correct that Edward's proposal is very optimistic that the RW will not sabotage any such system so that the public system loses the competition to the private one. The corporate lobbyists are almost unbeatable at using the legislative and regulatory process to undermine the public sector -- especially when it is in competition with the private sector.

Already, about a third of the U.S. population -- that's 100 million people -- have healthcare through some federal program: Medicare, Medicaid, or the VA system. I've often thought that even with a piecemeal approach, we could increase this percentage till it turns into something close to a governmental single-payer system. Sounds like Edwards' plan would speed up this process enormously.

A full frontal assault on the insurance cos. etc. is likely to provoke a nasty backlash, just as Hillary's plan did in the 1990s (and hers wasn't even a frontal assault.)

As for corporate medicine trying to leech money out of the public systm--yes, and we should think ahead and come up with methods to combat them effectively. Of course, a lot of that depends on results of the 2008 Congressional elections.

will get the same response, so we might as well give the industry the death penalty. We could offer civil service jobs to their employees, and immunity from criminal prosecution if the major shareholders and corporate officers don't cause any trouble.

If anyone knows the how the healthcare system operates it is Edwards. As a personal injury lawyer you have to learn how healthcare services are provided, who makes the decisions, and where the reform has to come from to make the biggest difference.

Edwards has said that this is not the end all of reforms needed. It is the stop gap measure to immediately get healthcare services for 55 million uninsured immediately(millions of children included).

Healthcare lobbyists are undoubtedly one of the most powerful on Capitol Hill, and there are many Congressmen 'owned' by the industry.

So realistically, sometimes you have get the changes that are possible now, and work to get the changes everyone deserves from that point on.

Edwards is to be commended for putting out a plan with specifics that everyone can find fault with, but it is a plan that can be implemented that will have real time results for the 55 million uninsured.

I have followed Edwards for years, and I would be shocked if he did not take this step as a way to greater reforms in the Healthcare industry. This is why so much money on the Republican side is being directed to attack Edwards on personal matters, not substance.

Until the make up of Congress changes, true 'universal healthcare' is impossible --and those candidates calling for it without giving out specifics as to their plans to make it a reality are really only offering platitudes, sure to fail in implementation.

If that program was started now, you know financial scammers would coopt it like Bush intentionally did with his medicare drug bill.

Further, Clinton's proposal in the early 90s bent over backwards to keep the insurance companies in the loop.

They don't deserve any more consideration.

They let people die to make money.

I've had jobs where my schools don't provide healthcare, and one of my co-workers got cancer, but he was working in another district that let him buy into their health plan, so he could get treatment.

If he just worked at the bad school and another one like it, he would be bankrupt or dead. As a member of my union, I had dealings with the administrators who deny us health care but pull down six figure incomes. It was like looking into the eyes of John Wayne Gacy. It is hard to describe the feeling. Those people are an abstraction to us most of the time, but when you realize what they do to people you know then meet them--I eventually had to quit that job because it just disturbed me so much.

In fact he is holding seminars for congress and has a bill out there and is asking for grassroots support

dkos has a diary on it
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/24/71912/7275

Republican talking points own the American agenda because all the ones that take it on are quickly marginalized by the republicans, the media and the democratic party itself. Sorry to be blunt.