So now, we have word that Presidential candidate John Edwards has proposed a so-called “universal” health plan. Here’s a couple of choice paragraphs from the ABC News version of the story:
“Can we finally say we stand, now and forever, for every single man, woman and child in America having health care, universal health care?” Edwards said before a speech at the Democratic National Committee. “We will leave no one behind. We will not allowed a single family or a single child in America to not have health care coverage and to not have the health care that they need and deserve.”
[snip]
Edwards plan would first require employers to cover their workers or help pay for their insurance. He would try to clamp down on rising costs with tax credits to help lower and middle income taxpayers pay for their plans, expanded government programs like Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, and changes to insurance laws to require coverage for all regardless of pre-existing conditions or other factors. And he would create nonprofit regional purchasing pools so that consumers would have a way to buy an affordable and high quality plan.
So on one side he claims he wants a plan that provides healthcare for every man, woman and child. And then it turns out his plan depends on employers buying healthcare policies. Apparently he has forgotten that children don’t have employers.
And that is merely the most obvious of reasons his plan won’t work. Everybody else is beating their chests about how it will mean higher taxes! Nobody is mentioning that his plan requires changes to insurance law in pretty much each of the 50 states. Nobody is mentioning that it is just another plan that siphons money out of doctor’s and patient’s and even employer’s pockets, and stuffing the bank accounts of mostly for-profit insurance companies. It’s just another Hillary-style band-aid on a fundamentally broken system.
It’s time for something completely different. Let’s hope we get it before there’s a real medical emergency.
Other Musings: job creation and unemployment numbers are in a place where economists can pretend they are good news; latest salvo in trade war with China; somebody has noticed that contractors amount to a “4th branch of government”, effectively outsourcing things that maybe shouldn’t be outsourced; Prince!; and thanks to frequent-poster Jukkou-san for pointing out that states are fighting back on RealID, so keep bugging your state legislature because it’s working!
Follow up: Some of you realize that Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon is working for the Edwards campaign. She posted a call for questions on the Edwards Health Plan, and linked this document, which confirms that this is a mandatory health plan rather than a universal health plan.
what is it with the shorter sex and the “glyph?” (Prince) Is it his big “guitar?”
i could use a gubment contract too, and as “the buisness of America is buisness,” it is only natural that the process play out so. Corporations are increasingly multinational and this may well be the way toward a more world-wide-administration…? So the company which pays your pay check also is in charge of counting and taking the deductions, issuing your identification, and a host of other life controling “services…?”
oh and why do you think they call it “Blackwater?”