Readers Write: John Edwards' Plan to Get Serious About Healthcare

By AlterNet Staff, AlterNet. Posted November 17, 2007.

AlterNet readers had an animated discussion following a recent piece looking at Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards' new campaign ads, airing in Iowa, that promise to take away the health insurance members of Congress enjoy unless they enact his proposal for universal healthcare ("Edwards: If Members of Congress Won't Give Americans a Healthcare Plan, I'll Take Away Theirs.")

Vox Persona, while approving of Edwards' strategy for bringing about universal coverage, also had some words of caution: "Being from N.C., I can give you the heads up on our former illustrious senator. Serving in his one term, he spent most of his time running for president. How would you feel? The word opportunism comes to mind. He seems to say some of the right things, and I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but his kind of raw ambition makes me uneasy."

Jefferson's Guardian, disagreeing, replied: "It has to start with someone, Vox Persona, doesn't it?

"Quite possibly what you view as "raw ambition" in John Edwards might also be interpreted as someone who sees that time is running out for the American people.

"Someone has to take the bull by the horns. Aside Kucinich, who else is out there speaking for the American people?

"None."

Oregoncharles, a Green Party organizer, expressed concern that the candidate might be someone other than Hillary Clinton. "Uh-oh," he wrote, "if Edwards is the nominee, I'm in trouble. I'm counting on Hillary to make the Greens players in the election … Edwards is the only one of the Big Three who could hold progressives in the party." But Scheherezade disagreed with Oregoncharles' appraisal: "Hillary knows if she gets the nomination, Greens will come on board" s/he wrote. "Nobody's going to risk a repeat of the 2000 election. However, the presence of Edwards as a running mate would certainly sweeten the pot."

There was quite a bit of debate over the fact that Edwards' plan leaves the for-profit system and insurance companies in place for the moment, but puts the private sector in direct competition with a publicly financed system, the idea being that if people are given the choice, the benefits of the public system would eventually lead to its adoption by everyone. The article's author had argued that it was a politically pragmatic way to get to a public, single-payer system, but many readers disagreed.

Oregonscribbler wrote: "There is a fatal flaw in the Edwards plan. He says the ultimate aim of his plan is single-payer -- that private care will just wither away because it won't be able to compete with the public system. This is just nonsense. It is legislators and administrators who will determine just how good the public plan is, and for years they have been in the deep pockets of the medical insurance industry." After endorsing Dennis Kucinich's healthcare proposal, s/he continued:

"We need a bold plan, to really revolutionize our healthcare system. Make it single-payer and decentralized, like in Canada, with people going to the doctor of their choice. Make it labor-intensive, and include alternative health practitioners, because simple attention and touch are often as healing as pharmaceuticals, only without negative side effects.

"We ALREADY PAY for a fabulous healthcare system, we're just not getting. It's time we forced the bureaucrats and plutocrats and industrialists to stand out of the way and let the rest of us make it happen."

Peacelf disagreed: "Edwards' plan makes smart political sense. I think a public healthcare program in competition with private health insurance is a smart move toward a single-payer system …

"Like social security, once in service, the people will not let public healthcare coverage die. It will become a political hot button that voters will defeat anyone who touches it. And, it could solve once or for all the conservative's argument that the private sector can do it better."

TZ offered an example of why private healthcare systems are, generally speaking, so much costlier than public ones:

"About 25 years ago here in Cleveland, Blue Cross, Blue Shield held sway. Then one of the crafty bosses decided to take this company private into what is now called Medical Mutual. By so doing he needed the board to approve it, and thus they paid each board member an average of $500,000 for their vote. The crap hit the fan when it was made public, but it still went through.

"The total administrative costs of the old plan were often touted as about 3 percent for each dollar spent. Now our friends at Medical Mutual have an average administrative cost of about 40 percent. I wish to hell I was one of the bosses at Medical Mutual.

"Now you wonder why our costs are so high and care so low. The insurance industry will not admit this and Medical Mutual in Cleveland (Ohio) claim they cannot break out these costs. They do not want us to know this, but we do know it since some clients have "third-party administrators" working for them, and since these folks review each claim, they only pay what are really medical bills. Maybe the candidates ought to push for a mandate to force the insurance industry to use real, independent third-party administrators.

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