Corporate, HMO driven "health care" is motivated by nothing more than ever increasing profit margins.

As a result, that's what you get when you put MBAs (Master of Business Administration) in charge of the "American Health Care System".

The goal is not to deliver quality health care at the lowest cost. The goal is to charge higher and higher premiums, while delivering less and less to patients.

Thus, "maximizing shareholder value" and "return on investment" drive the "health care industry", not irrelevant, profit-killing concepts like "positive patient care outcome", if you'll pardon the phrase.

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nicely said! Hope you post more often. Such clear real straight talk is missed. This was a very importent issue for me, and really appreciated John's response when he first started running.

Am I nieve, to not be able to understand why, every other Industrial Nation in the world, has been able to figure out how to provide Single-Payer/Non-Profit HealthCARE not Insurance, the only reason America can't is because of the money Special Interests & Corporations spend and donate in Washington DC??

Are the two Democratic Candidates really offering that much better of a solution?? Aren't they both still talking Insurance Policey's, and 'bean-counters' denying coverage to increase Profits? Just now, the Profits will be our Tax-dollars subsidizing the Programs providing the Insurance! The coverage is still going to be denied, there's still going to be deductibles, and co-pays!

I saw a study, (boy do I wish I saved it) it showed how if we Nationalized Basic Healthcare, and eliminated Insurance Co. from the middle, we could cover every single American Right Now, for less money then is currently spent!

Those who wanted the Extra's, (a private room, chiropractic care, non-essential care) could buy Insurance to cover those.

If you get a chance, check out the Green Party, they have Single-Payer/Non-Profit Healthcare, as part of their Party Platform. After John suspended his candidacy, I went searching for someone to support! & ran into them. I'm pretty impressed!

Best to you and the family, Take care of each other.

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I was born in Sweden and moved to the US when I was 43 years old.

One of the things I found strange was that there was no universal health care coverage. However I soon learned that the US system had drawbacks but the Swedish system had even worse drawbacks. So if I have to make a choice I prefer the US system compared to the Swedish. I should know since I became seroulsy ill and had to take advatnage of the "best system in the world". I woudl not wish this experince on my worst enemy.

Ms Edwards is as her husband a limousine liberal. They have made their wealth according to the American system ut now wants to curb others doing teh same thing. It is utterly despicable.

Universal healthcare yes, socialised healthcare no! Do not make the same mistake Sweden did in the 70's. Sweden was one of the roichest countires in the wolrd and had teh best welfare sytem. Now Sweden is number 17 and its welfare is crumbling.

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get out! don't waste anybody's time with your fake story. or provide proof. not up to it?

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No one is going to take the money out of health care in America, no one, so whether you say your going to and don't or you say your not going to and don't at the end of the day the healthcare system will absorb a growing amount of money. Medical Schools will charge large amounts to educate because education can be financed. Banks will make loans to prospective doctors because doctors will have a license to steal. Insurance companies will gamble on a healthy table with square dice, and gable less on a ragged table with worn out dice. It is in our self-interest to be healthy, painless and live-longer so do not expect inventors, insurers, or providers to stop exploiting new ways to serve our interest at a profit.

It is foolish to expect a person to live a painful, miserable or a shorter life so that a stranger can be kept healthy at your expense. Yes, like Mrs. Edwards we can play to the compassions of our population but the system is not established to pay dividends on compassion in the long-term, compassion is not efficient and therefore competes with the prime directive, which is productivity for profit. If Mrs. Edwards was just barely insured and her compassion cost her medical treatment because the resources were diluted to serve the masses at no profit I doubt she would sacrifice her life so that the masses could be served at the beggars table.

Sure we can pretend that America is national unit, that to be American is to care for it's occupants, but we know that's not true. Truth is we are trained to compete because competition creates efficiency and the efficiencies are translated into profits for the wealthy and the investor. Challenge that Prime directive and watch the engine of capitalism move to other nations, leaving America to be a shadow of it self.

The medical system has had a captive audience for years, the players like the profits and the loopholes. Forcing them to change will threaten your health and life expectancy, so sympathize for the poor uninsured bloke if it makes you feel good but at the end of the day your going to save your money to educate your children rather than spend it on the politically powerless.

As for the politically powerless, nothing will change unless they revolt to create a renaissance that is long overdue. The system is riddled with hypocrisy, even in these expressions of compassion.

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Including the health insurance industry in any health coverage "solution" is like bartering with the KKK over our Civil Rights, or negotiating our National Security with Al Qaeda. It's goals are perverse and contrary to ours.

When will the Democrats find the spine to stand up and explain the truth to the American people? Why have they sold us out? We (the people) have the will and want to be united into the largest pool possible for everyone's best protection at the best price. We know we need to eliminate unnecessary (very expensive) middlemen (who have NO mercy) and start utilizing efficiencies of scale. All we lack is the right leadership.

Neither Obama nor Clinton nor McCain will stop the human carnage and wasted health care dollars created and perpetuated by America's health insurers. Democrats are supporting more Corporate Welfare for health insurers rather than affordable, sustainable, transparent, moral health coverage for the American people. Obama and Clinton know this while McCain is simply clueless.

We need you and your husband explaining the truth to the American people, but I can understand how you might be reluctant to support Nader's position (even if it is the right thing to do).

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My job ended last October due to lack of work and my husband is self-employed. Fortunately we have been permitted to stay on our existing group health care plan for another nine months or until I find another job, whichever comes first. Unfortunately the health insurance premium for my husband, son and me is almost $900 per month. And that is just the premium…we have a $1,500 deductible per person/$3,000 deductible per family plus $25 - $35 co-payments for every office visit. We get a deduction on prescription drugs but must still pay between $10 - $50 per prescription, depending upon which category our insurance company has decided to assign each drug.

Because the insurance was so expensive we started to shop around and decided to switch to the local Farm Insurance, which gave us a slightly better deal. We were assured by the insurance agent that everything was fine and that coverage would begin on February 1, 2008. Based on this I cancelled our insurance with my former employer. On Saturday, January 26 I received a letter from the Farm Insurance telling me that my husband and son were accepted, but I was rejected. I was shocked. I had never been rejected before and the issue of rejection had never been raised during the course of our conversation with the insurance folks. Luckily I was able to scramble and get my cancellation order reversed before my old insurance expired, however, I wonder what I would have done had I received that letter just a few days later!

If I do not find a job by the end of May I will be forced to obtain a plan from the State of Illinois for “uninsurable” people – that is, if the State of Illinois does not run out of money for this program by then. If I am fortunate enough to obtain the state plan, I will continue to pay huge premiums.

There is so much wrong with this system, I hardly know where to begin. Tying insurance to employment presents a whole host of problems and potential gaps in coverage. It raises the possibility of rejection when COBRA plans run out. Premiums are outrageous – who can afford to shell out $15,000 or more per year for insurance, deductibles, co-payments, pharmaceuticals and other medical expenses? And then there is the big question – why do we allow insurance companies to ‘skim off’ and insure only those consumers who have no health care problems, saddling the state and taxpayers with the burden of providing for all of the ‘uninsurable people? I don’t mind paying higher taxes to help less fortunate people, but I do mind enabling a system that allows private insurance companies to reap the financial benefits of ‘skimming’.

This story is just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many other problems with health insurance, for example, several years ago a close friend was diagnosed with a nonmalignant inoperable brain tumor. She did all the research and discovered that the gamma knife offered the best hope for a cure, and she scheduled surgery at a medical facility in Ohio that specializes in this treatment. Two days before she was scheduled to leave town she received a letter from the insurance company denying her treatment, stating that such treatment was experimental for her condition – a statement that was patently false. The gamma knife has been used for almost two decades for inoperable tumors. Upon closer examination of the letter it became clear that the insurance company did not understand the nature of her problem, which they referred to as an “arterial anomaly”. Their decision was based on their belief that she had an aneurism, not a tumor. Fortunately they were able to figure out the problem and contact the appropriate people at the insurance company to have the decision reversed in time to have the procedure done as scheduled…but one has to wonder, who is vetting these decisions? Certainly not someone with a medical degree!

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I've done my homework on this issue, so let me explain how Obama and Clinton are misleading us. "Guaranteed Issue" is a term that means health insurers have to sell us coverage even if we have health problems. "Community Rating" means insurers cannot financially discriminate against us if or when we become sick. Obama and Clinton both offer Americans the first protection (Guaranteed Issue), but leave the second one out. They both support legal loopholes so insurers can rate us up and out if we become actarial losers (no Community Rating for us). The first protection is meaningless without the second, and the health insurance industry will weazel its way around any regulations to make another dollar at our expense any way it can, whatever rules are put into play. We cannot protect ourselves against the health insurance industry, and we desperately need protection from it, but our leaders are MIA.

One out of four Americans who are left to the mercy of the health insurance industry (it has NONE) are totally unprotected. Probably at least another one in four are totally unprotected but don't know it. Policing an industry that has been allowed to run so far amok for so long is incredibly expensive if not downright impossible. Without a level playing field, (that means if the health insurance industry is allowed to keep picking cherries while leaving lemons to rot or be picked up by taxpayers) a publicly financed system will not be affordable or sustainable. If there is a level playing field, profit-driven health insurers will lose.

Only a few hundred thousand more unnecessary deaths will occur, and several hundreds of billions more of our health care dollars wasted, in the meantime.

Adding $100-125 billion MORE health care dollars (Obama, Clinton) is no solution. We could save at least $350 billion every year after all Americans are covered reliably and comprehensively from cradle to grave (according to Physicians for a National Health Program, not me) and save at least 101,000 innocent, involuntary American lives (according to a recent study published in Health Affairs, not me) this year and every year after year simply by asking the insurance industry to find ways to make money that do not unnecessarily kill, disable, bankrupt and terrorize millions of innocent Americans. It is well positioned to diversify (trust me).

Here's what happens when you add even heavily regulated health insurers into what used to be a very well-run government program...before Bush got ahold of it and gave a big chunk to the health insurance industry to keep for itself.

Medicare's New Disadvantage

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One: I doubt if your a Swede, maybe an ex-patriot from this country. That's a BIG maybe, most likely a phoney. Sweden's WHO, ranking for life expectencey, outcomes, and infant mortality; are all WAY AHEAD of the USA! Plus, they spend far less then half of what we do per-person! Actually EVERY major Industrial Nation in the World, spends less then half of what we do, they provide Universal Coverage, and better outcomes!

John Edwards, was born into a blue-collar mill workers family, he was the Only candidate, born of working class, non-college educated parents! He didn't attend Ivy League college(s), what he has, he's earned!
(There is absolutely no need for 'name-calling' or dispariaging his character!)
I won't even try to go into all the people, he's helped, with his college program in N.Carolina, or in New Orleans!

As long as Nay-Sayers, (like you) keep saying It Can't Be Done! It'll keep making it twice as hard for US, people with ideas, and suggestions for How It Can Be Done, to be heard! (Or is that your point??)

'OUR' medical schools turn away thousands of highly qualified American students, every year! Those that can afford it, frequently go to foreign countries to be traind as doctors!

By 'Non-Profit', it doesn't mean no one gets paid! It means "excessive" profits can't be made from people being sick!($20 Asprins) That careing for the patient, comes before worrying about making Profits, or getting an Insurance Co. approval (from a non-medical person), before you can perform a life-saving procedure, or prescribe a medicine!

I am not suggesting any particular countries healthcare system is perfect. (I did study this a little in college, but that was years ago). How about setting up a panel, who study ALL of them. Take the best practices, that are proven to work, put them together into one comprehensive plan?? What we have, doesn't work for the Majority of Americans.

**Country Before Party**Go Green (Party)**votesmart.org***

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Elizabeth, thank you SO much, once again, for speaking up for those who don't have a voice! I have always been a supporter of you and John and continue to do so. Both of you have been and will always be the strongest proponents on this very important issue. It is so wonderful to hear from you again! Thank you!

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Both systems are flawed. In the socialist country I am familiar with, the natioanl insurance is - to keep it short - being used for a certain type of population control. While that is true as well for the U.S. here we have the 'Fear of Dying' exploitants, who rake us over the barrelhead with stories of all the many ways in which we can die. This system tethers the rich and chucks out the poor. As long as Healthcare/Healthinsurance is allowed te be a profitmaking industry, which takes advantage of the health needs of the people the business approach will prevail.
We don't all need to travel first class when sick. We all however ought to be able to live in a country that is organized enough to allow us to survive when we get sick and to live to talk about it without being yoked to the bill collectors of the Health care Industry forever after. If other countries have done better than we, then so can we.
We need to break the mold instead of trying to make the current one do more than it - all things considered - is capable of. So lamenting and dreaming for a better world is useless. Only logic ought to prevail just like in every other type of endeavour if it is to be succesful. Maybe some super manager can come up with a real plan that is good for the health Industry and for the people alike, the way it ought to be.

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Posted by: bthespoon on Apr 2, 2008 6:46 AM

..have been for over seven long years, and all they have proven is that they can and will rule just as corruptly as Republicans. The state plan (CHIP) you speak of has a waiting list a mile long and is far more expensive than the price you're paying now (if you can get on it at all). Good luck because you're going to need it.

BTW, Obama is from Illinois (where he is not so new, and where there is neither Guaranteed Issue nor Community Rating protection for consumers from health insurers), so please don't hold your breath, America, waiting for the "Audacity of False Hope" to change anything except the quality of the rhetoric. (Obama does talk a GREAT talk.)

Here's an interesting sidenote. Obama wants to start his incremental non-reform health coverage plan by covering all children with health insurance. The "All Kids" program in Illinois pays health insurers $1750 per child (possibly matched with $1750 federal funds but I could not determine that for sure), and each kid receives an average of $600 worth of medical care. One of the HMO's that received one of the contracts donated $150,000 to the governor's campaign the week after he signed the bill. Giving public funds to profit-driven insurers to cover our kids is a great deal for the insurance industry, but a lousy one for us and our kids. The same industry will use everything on our children's medical records to discriminate against them the minute they turn into adults and have to change policies.

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Healthcare in this country is just fine (I've got mine, so screw you). There's no way i'll interfere with business as usual, especially since I've had to to kiss so many asses for campaign contrubutions from Big Pharma and BIG Insurance. Those assholes are almost as stingy with me as they are with the general public,and I'm an Important Person. Ask anybody.Forget all this health crap and let's talk about my plan to win in Iraq and smash Iran. Yeah! That's it! That's the ticket!

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... Single Desk, "Universal coverage for all" with no profit margins to complicate the already complicated health issues healthcare practitioner's must deal with...

Doctors should focus on health care and not on filling out paperwork on proven procedures...

the US system is the most wasteful system on the planet, causing more harm than good...

good healthcare must protect caregivers from frivolous lawsuits, and healthcare should identify needed procedures from unneeded cosmetic types procedures!...

A two tiered healthcare system could be made available for a comprehensive coverage package...
but lifesavings [should be physical and not monetary] must be a decision between family and doctors, not plan managers and doctors, with families coming in a distant 3rd!

unfortunately I don't see anything serious happening on this front for the next 8 years...

what a wasted opportunity... such a shame!

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As noted by many it is good to hear from Mrs. Edwards again. It is my hope that she and her husband will be able to put any nomination race acrimony behind them and come out and support Sen. Clinton as the nominee, since she is the one most closely aligned with their overall thinking on poverty as an American tragedy, which encompasses health care and much more. Normally, I advocate for the Super Delegates to hold their fire until the votes are in, but I'd sure love to see the Edwards give Sen. Clinton the boost she could use sooner, rather than later. Obama is a good man and a talented man, but Sen. Clinton is the person we need now at such a critical stage in our country both domestic and foreign.

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All children in Mexico have free healthcare and free preventative care. Anyone living in Mexico can get Mexican National Health Care for around $260.00 per year and that includes prescriptions. Not bad for a "third-world country" is it?

Most doctors that a practicing in Mexico have been educated in the US. The government in leau of high student loans pays for most student's education and in return these doctors are required to work one day per week for the National Health Care system.

Healthcare is far better in Mexico and costs 1/10 the price. Same modern technology and equipment and personalized care.

International insurance with no deductible and no limit on catistrophic illness costs under $1,000 per yeat individual and $1700 for a couple and can be purchased for that price prior to age 65 with no pre-existing conditions. Otherwise, National Health Care in Mexico is the way to go for any resident here.

An American friend with colon cancer, large tumor and spreading, paid out of pocket $15,000 total for surgury, quimo, and radiation treatments. Best care you could get anywhere in the world with private room and all. Cancer free for 3-1/2 years now.

During Clinton's presidency there was an extreme effort made to fix the US health care system correctly and this effort was lead by Hilary Clinton. With a Republican House & Senate and other career politians in office it couldn't get off the ground.

Now compromises are being offered, covering all Americans regardless of pre-existing conditions by Hilary. This is a small step in the right direction, which is the only option possible until later down the road. The control by the Drug companies and Medical Associations can't be whittled down overnight. We must start somewhere.

The Mexican Healthcare system is being over-whelmed by a high diabetes rate. Thanks to the US fast food market and major soft drink companies, Mexico is now the 2nd fattest nation in the world right behind the US and predictions are that it could surpass the US in the next decade. Mexico was 32nd in 1979. The Mexican government has launched diet and preventative education programs and services to try to stop further diabetic population increases.

In the US it seems the only education programs out are commericials by the drug companies for designer medications.

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