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Today, I looked at John Edwards’ website. He has an Issues section that gives a brief overview of all the issues important to him. There are also 34 issue links listed. Each is a hyperlink to a page that goes into detail about his position on that issue. They are classified into three categories entitled “Standing Up For Regular Families”, “Restoring America’s Leadership Role In The World”, and “Investing In Our Future And Our Communities”. Lastly, he has an 80-page PDF download! Granted, all of page 2 consists of a large picture of himself speaking in front of an American flag so large, that fewer than half it’s stripes can be seen. Regardless, this is going to be a long post. To make it a little easier, I’ll break it up into multiple parts…
Hold on… this sounds very familiar. This time, I’ll forgo the PDF in favor of the webpages.
Health Care: This issue is neatly organized into two sets of bullet points. The first lists the goals of Edward’s health care plan, and the second lists how he plans to achieve those goals. Basically the goals are affordable health insurance for the uninsured, cheaper rates for the insured, and lower costs for business offering coverage to employees. To achieve these goals, he’d require business to either offer an insurance plan or subsidize employee’s private insurance plan, offer medical tax credits, expand public health programs like SCHIP and Medicaid, and reforming insurance laws. He also wants to set up regional Health Care Markets that would create increased competitiveness between insurers resulting in more choices and lower costs for individuals and business. The last step for his plan would be to make health coverage mandatory for all Americans.
I don’t understand the last bit. Why make coverage a legal mandate? I can somewhat see the case for mandating coverage for children, but adults? Is it that the tax payer often ends up picking up the tab for the uninsured when they visit emergency rooms? That makes some sense. Also, what would be the penalty for violating the mandate? I think that is an important factor to consider. Lastly, I don’t see the market-based system he proposes to make insurance affordable for everyone. What is his plans to cover the poorest Americans?