The Key to Health Care Reform

The following piece is part of an ongoing series of OffTheBus reports by citizen policy experts critiquing different aspects of Campaign 08.

Much of last Wednesday's Democratic presidential debate at Dartmouth College focused on health care reform, which Americans consider the top domestic policy issue, according to polls. Moderator Tim Russert asked each of the eight candidates about their proposals to guarantee every American affordable health care, and each responded with their well-practiced sound-bites.

But only John Edwards identified the most important ingredient for pushing a universal health care plan through Congress -- mobilizing public opinion, and changing the nation's political balance-of-power, through grassroots organizing.

Edwards acknowleged that winning health care reform won't happen simply by inside-the-Beltway maneuvering. On that playing field, the drug companies, the insurance industry, and the hospital and HMO chains have the money and the upper hand.

The other candidates, Edwards said, believe that the way to get a health care bill is to broker a deal between "Washington insiders" -- insurance companies, drug companies and other lobby groups. "Its like the rest of America doesn't exist," Edwards noted.

"We need a President who is willing to go to America and make the case for universal health care."

Edwards pledged to be a leader, not just a deal-maker. Twice during Wednesday's debate, Edwards mentioned his hard work over the past few years helping labor unions and community organizing groups. Both prior to launching his campaign for president, and as an integral part of his crusade for the White House, Edwards has crisscrossed the country speaking at union rallies, joining picket lines and campaigns to raise the minimum wage, and visiting job-training centers, affordable housing developments sponsored by nonprofit community groups, and public schools where parents are trained to be effective advocates for children. At the debate, he talked about his work in New Orleans with the community group ACORN to organize residents trying to restore their homes and return to their neighborhoods in the wake of Katrina. And he talked about the importance of union organizing as a way to give workers a voice on the job and in the political arena.

This is hardly the typical path to the White House. Winning health care reform is part of Edwards' moral crusade against poverty and widening inequality in the world's wealthiest nation. While each of the Democratic candidates has put forward a health reform plan, Edwards seems most eager to forge alliances with unions, community groups, religious congregations, public interest and public health organizations, women's groups, and others to wage a campaign that is both bottom-up and top-down, one that combines an "inside" strategy and an "outside" strategy.

Edwards doesn't view these groups as "special interests," but as the key elements of an emerging movement to renew American democracy by empowering ordinary people.

When he visited the United States in the 1830s to write the now-classic Democracy in America, Frenchman Alexis deToqueville viewed the many voluntary self-help organizations among ordinary citizens as the genius of our pluralistic democracy.

Edwards is the first presidential candidate since Robert Kennedy who understands that grassroots organizing -- from the Boston Tea Party to the civil rights movement -- is a central part of American tradition.

Edwards wants help build on the upsurge of civic activism that has taken place across the country over the past decade, often below the media radar screen. He seems inspired by the people he's met in his work with grassroots groups. He wants to apply those lessons as President. He wants to be America's organizer-in-chief.