Obama represents the "Audacity of False Hope" on health care. Specifically, his plan says health insurers would have to "JUSTIFY" charging large premium differences, as if financial discrimination against people when they are sick and at their most vulnerable is justifiable at all. With friends like this who needs enemies?
Another piece of legislation he supports says the rest of us will have access to the same health care plan as he and other members of Congress "except for the way (we) are rated" (sigh). He leaves that part out, but I'm pretty sure he knows it's in there. He also neglects to mention that federal employee plans generally cost more than the $12,100/year national average. (I think he knows that too).
Hillary's plan says insurance companies will be prohibited from charging "large" premium differences based on "modified" community rating, whatever that means, but do know it represents the only loophole health insurance companies need. SHAME on them. Both Obama and Clinton swear they will NOT support Single Payer (Single Pool*) and insist profit-driven health insurance middlemen must be part of any solution. (*I prefer framing it as Single Pool because it uses a consumer rather than administrative picture, but Single Payer is the same as Single Pool.)
John Edwards's plan says insurers will have to charge "fair" premiums, which admittedly is a bit wishy-washy too, but at least his rhetoric says that he believes Single Payer (Single Pool) is obviously the best way to go, that the inordinate greed of insurance companies is the main part of the problem (which it is), and if forced to work on a level playing field, health insurers will lose (which they will).
But HERE IS THE IMPORTANT PART: Edwards is the only one of the top three that even wants to create a level playing field with REAL (not fake) community rating and guaranteed issue. The difference is Edwards "gets" what needs to be done while Obama and Clinton don't. Both (and all the Republicans running) want us to believe that the problem is the solution when it isn't. American lives and the future of our economy depend upon voters not being too busy to notice or care about the devil in their details. Edwards is the only viable candidate running for President who is even headed in the right direction. All the others are guilty of misleading on real health care reform, and we simply cannot afford to be misled any longer.
The next sentence may sound radical at first, but what if it's true? Including the profit-driven health insurance industry in health care reform is like including the KKK in Civil Rights or Al Qaeda in National Security. Its goals are perverse and contrary to our ability as a nation to create an affordable, transparent, sustainable, high quality, moral health care delivery system. To police health insurers that have been allowed to run so far amok for so long would simply cost too much, while allowing them to continue overcharging healthy Americans and pulling safety nets out from under sick ones costs too much (money, lives, morality) too, and delivers too little already. In business terms we call what needs to be done "eliminating excessively expensive, unnecessary, greedy, amoral middlemen and start utilizing efficiencies of scale". I guess it depends upon whose business you really support: the people's or the health insurance industry's?
I think the Republicans think they can beat Hillary or Obama, and I'm afraid they might be right. Edwards bothers and worries them more because he would do the most to counter the damage they have done, and polls show him the most likely to defeat any Republican running. Pay attention to what the media is doing and where the money is going. We really should not allow who gets the most media coverage or campaign dollars to determine who our candidates are.
A quote from Michael Moore after the Iowa caucus:
So Barak...if you can, tell me why you are now the second largest recipient of health industry payola after Hillary. You now take more money from the people committed to stopping universal health care than any of the Republican candidates...