Edwards' plan creates non-profit health care markets which allow for-profit private insurance companies to co-exist with a non-profit public health care program along the lines of Medicare (which is important because it allows the objectors to opt out of public health care plan if they want to and this choice undercuts their opposition to the plan) but MOST IMPORTANTLY these health care markets force the for-profit private insurance companies to compete directly against the non-profit public health care program based on Medicare. Most health care experts predict that the for-profit private insurance companies will be unable to successfully compete directly against the non-profit public health care program, which is how Edwards' plan will evolve into public single-payer universal health care.

Obama's and Hillary's plans do not have this feature.

Here is why you need Edwards' and Hillary's mandates, even though Obama pretends that you don't.

Edwards and Hillary would also eliminate the ability of health care coverage providers (whether private or public) to exclude an applicant based on prior medical conditions. You can imagine what this would lead to: if a person doesn't need to have insurance unless and until he gets sick, he could just go without any insurance and then wait to buy insurance until the day he feels really sick or gets badly injured. You can't do this today, of course, because your day-before-buying-insurance illness or injury would be excluded as a pre-existing condition. But since Edwards and Hillary would both eliminate the right of insurance companies (both private and public) to exclude coverage based on pre-existing conditions, they would create the nightmare that many would drop off their health care plans to avoid paying premiums only to re-sign up for insurance once they get sick. This is one reason why coverage has to be mandatory.

More fundamentally, without the mandates, no health care plan will be universal. Many people who "go naked" with respect to health insurance become a burden on the public health care system when they suffer a major illness or injury and obtain their medical care from the emergency room under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. The mandates in Hillary's and Edwards' plans re-allocate these burdens. Where people get their health care coverage from their employers, the employers get tax incentives to ameliorate that burden; where people buy their own insurance, they get it at a reduced cost and they get tax incentives to defray the cost; where people cannot afford to buy insurance and don't get it though their employer, they become eligible for government-provided coverage. If car insurance was like health insurance under Obama's plan (i.e., it was not mandated), people would elect not to have car insurance because they couldn't afford it. Under this system, those uninsured drivers (or people without health insurance under Obama's health insurance plan) are a burden on the system because the damage they cause doesn't vanish just because they are uninsured -- instead, the costs to the system from the uninsured raise the costs for the insured. In the car insurance context, this mis-allocated cost is properly re-allocated to the greatest extent possible by making insurance mandatory. It would have the same effect under the mandates set out in Edwards' and Hillary's plans. Whether or not Obama thinks mandates "are a good idea," mandates are the only way to ensure that coverage is truly universal, the only way to ensure that the mis-allocated burden on the system from the uninsured is properly re-allocated as nearly as possible, and the only way to stop the inevitable situation under Obama's plan that the uninsured will be the working poor. If Obama thinks this is a bad idea, that's an excellent reason to support another candidate.

Plus, under Edwards' plan, the vast majority would get their health care coverage through their employer, and for those who don't, Edwards' plan subsidized coverage for everyone making $100,000 a year or less (including a 100% subsidy for the poorest people).

Here is an excerpt from a good article:

Health markets would offer traditional plans from private companies such as Blue Cross-Blue Shield, Aetna and Cigna, as well as a government-run plan similar to Medicare, the federal health-insurance program for the elderly. The public-sector plan would resemble Canada’s single-payer system, in which insurance is publicly funded to control costs but doctors and hospitals remain private.

“The idea is to determine whether Americans actually want a private insurer or whether they would rather have a government-run ... single-payer plan,” Edwards said. “We’ll find out over time where people go.” The mix of market and government initiatives makes Edwards’ plan much harder to attack than Clinton’s early 1990s plan, said Leif Wellington Haase of the Century Foundation, a liberal-leaning think tank. “In this plan, the changes happen much more gradually,” Haase said. “Each element has a market element that deflects the attack. I think it’s a very smart political document.”

Although Haase thinks the Edwards plan does not go far enough, conservatives fear it would take the country too far toward government-run care. “It sets up a slippery slope to move toward a single-payer, government-run health care system,” said Mike Tanner of the Cato Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank. “He realizes that Americans are not going to take that in one bite.” Tanner contends that under Edwards’ parallel system, private insurance would be unable to compete with a taxpayer-funded system. The single-payer system, Tanner argued, sounds good. But it would not be popular with citizens because it would ration treatment for expensive and long illnesses, and would discourage pharmaceutical companies from developing new drugs. “Single-payer systems are good if you are not sick,” Tanner said. “They provide routine care at low cost. But they don’t provide intensive, expensive medicine for people with serious illnesses.”

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/news/article/... /

Here is an excerpt from another good article:

All three contenders have proposed a national healthcare system that is a variant of the plan developed by Yale political scientist Jacob Hacker. The basics of the plan are to require that all firms either insure their workers directly or pay a fee to the government. The government then uses this money to heavily subsidise insurance for low- and moderate-income families. It also establishes an expanded Medicare-type public plan that people will have the option to buy into. In addition, it reforms the private insurance market, most importantly by requiring that insurers not discriminate based on pre-existing conditions.

Both Clinton and Edwards would impose a mandate that everyone buy into this system. Obama has claimed that he would not require a mandate. As a practical matter, the healthcare system that any of them are able to put in place will depend on the arms they twist and the pressure they can bring to bear against the insurance companies, the pharmaceutical industry and other powerful actors who will be hurt by real reform.

Any serious plan will require a mandate - this directly follows from its requirement that insurers take all comers. Without a mandate, no one would buy insurance until they had serious bills. This would be like letting people buy car insurance after an accident, and then sending the company the bill. That doesn't work.

http://www.alternet.org/election08/71650 /

that uses market forces against private for-profit insurers which will have to compete with the non-profit public sector and this will ultimately lead to a public universal single payer system, the most progressive pro-labor and pro-universal-access-to-education and pro-living-wage-for-working families plan to fight poverty, the most progressive plan to restore equity to the tax system, the most progressive trade and labor plans, the most progressive response to the mortgage and broader predatory lending crises, and the most progressive plan to restore and promote the American values of an equal right to civil liberties and economic justice abroad.

That's just a few reasons why Edwards is the most progressive choice between Hillary, Obama, and Edwards.

Dennis Kucinich's platform is even more progressive, and I dearly wish it was viable, but if we can't elect Kucinich, we need to get behind the next most progressive alternative.

I'm talking about the Des Moines Register's endorsement of John McCain.

McCain has been lingering in 5th place in Iowa (but in a virtual tie with Giuliani, Thompson, and Paul for a distant 3rd place well behind Huckabee and Romney).

Yet McCain is in 2nd place and rising in New Hampshire.

A better-than-expected 3rd place finish in Iowa, especially if combined with a worse than expected distant 2nd place finish by Romney, could catapult McCain to a come-from-behind win in New Hampshire.

If McCain can pull off such an insurgence, it would cause a collapse of the Romney campaign, who will have by then blown a big lead in Iowa to Huckabee and a big lead in his next-door-neighbor-state New Hampshire to McCain. This McCain insurgence would also coincide with the now-inevitable end of the zombie-like Thompson campaign (he's currently at a shockingly poor 2% to 3% in New Hampshire), and just as McCain will be looking strongest, Giuliani's campaign will be looking weakest when, as is likely, Giuliani will have competed in two consecutive races where he failed to make the top 3.

If the Des Moines Register's endorsement of John McCain boosts him to a 3rd place finish in Iowa, and Huckabee wins handily in Iowa as expected, all bets are off.

McCain could win the Republican nomination.

If it becomes apparent that McCain may likely win the Republican nomination, you will hear more and more about the fact that McCain beats Hillary head-to-head and Obama can only tie McCain while Edwards wallops McCain by a hefty 8%:

Credit for the graphic to BruinKid at Kos and here is the original source upon which the graph is based.

Clearly, McCain is the Republican's strongest nominee by far.

Equally clearly, Edwards is our strongest nominee against McCain by far.

other reasons Obama is too centrist and too moderate to be my first choice:

Heath care

Immigration

Protecting the middle class

Sabre rattling over terrorists

This is from Obama own Senate website:

Moderate approach

He chose a half-dozen or so mostly noncontroversial topics on which to carve a niche. And on those issues - which range from the government's preparedness for avian flu to destroying weapons stockpiles in the former Soviet Union - he has mostly crafted a moderate stance, often working closely with a Republican colleague.

He went to Russia and the Ukraine with Sen. Richard Lugar, R- Ind., to inspect weapons storage sites. He teamed up with Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., to offer a "sensible center" proposal on the divisive issue of immigration reform.

And he joined Sen. Coburn on Katrina, where he generated considerable attention by visiting New Orleans and wading into the debate over whether the slow response was driven by racism. (That accusation, he said at the time, was "too simplistic," although he took the Bush administration to task more broadly for its policies toward the poor.)

Since then, Obama has focused his follow-up efforts on being a government watchdog as the Federal Emergency Management Agency doles out billions of dollars in reconstruction money.

He and Coburn called for a chief financial officer to oversee all the spending. Their proposal has stalled, but the two senators have continued to pound on FEMA in public and private on the issue.

Obama said his interests converged with those of Coburn, the conservative Republican. "Tom and I may not agree how money should always be spent, but we can agree that money should not be wasted," he said. "When you're allocating huge sums of money that's vanishing in no-bid contracts, that's hurting poor people as well as the taxpayers."

Obama's approach has mostly earned him rave reviews - from Republicans and Democrats alike - who say he is an open-minded, deliberative lawmaker.

Coburn called him a "phenomenal young man who will go to great heights," while Martinez said he hasn't seemed "dogmatic" or "ideologically driven" on any issue.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. and a frequent maverick within the GOP, said: "He's very impressive, he's thoughtful, he's centrist."

Cautious on Iraq

Obama's voting record shows fewer signs of independence. He supported a GOP-backed bill to impose new limits on class-action lawsuits and also said yes to Condoleezza Rice's confirmation for secretary of state, even as some of his Democratic colleagues used that vote to object to the Bush administration's Iraq war policy. But he has otherwise mostly voted with his fellow Democrats.

Obama also has taken a cautious tack on Iraq. He campaigned strongly against the war last year, and many expected him to be a forceful voice on the subject.

But Obama waded into the fray over Iraq after there was already a deafening drumbeat of criticism from both Democrats and Republicans of the administration's conduct of the war. And his speech offered little new; his call for a phased draw-down of troops, for example, had already been bandied about by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and others.

"The war has been a big challenge" for him, said Ronald Walters, a political science professor at the University of Maryland. "Because he comes from a community that is opposed to the war, and from a caucus that has mixed views . . . he has to be careful." His stance is "symptomatic of his moderation," said Walters.

Walters sees such positions as politically smart, and he sees Obama as part of a "new generation" of African-American leaders who are "less strident, less demanding, less militant."

Obama said his view on the war has been consistent. He thought it was wrong to get in but that now the United States has a responsibility to see the conflict through, which is why he doesn't support a quick withdrawal. Obama said he doesn't think he's being too cautious - on Iraq or anything else.

His allies and several outside observers agree. Mooney, the University of Illinois professor, said it would be more out of character for Obama to strike a hard line than to craft moderate policies as he's doing.

"I don't see him doing anything different than he did in the state house," Mooney said. "He's not a knee-jerk ideologue."

In his short time in the Senate, Obama has moved well to the center since his liberal days before he was a national figure.

I'm not saying Obama isn't a great guy, because he is, but he's too moderate for my taste. I'll work my ass off to see him elected if he's our nominee, but he isn't my first choice in the primary.

Credit for the graphic to BruinKid at Kos and here is the original source upon which the graph is based.

when the 2005 Bankruptcy Bill passed? If not, here are a few links to some of the discussion from back then:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...

Among the economic liberals (me included), there was GREAT consternation over the Democrats who were the bill's biggest supporters in the Senate (Biden, Carper, Johnson, and Nelson).

Many of those same people who were very upset about that bill are now Kucinich supporters (which makes sense to me). I'm assuming that those same people who were very upset with Biden, Carper, Johnson, and Nelson over the Bankruptcy Bill of 2005 and who now support Kucinich are not among those people who are most likely to switch into Biden supporters (but I could be wrong).

I'm not a one issue voter, and I prefer Biden to some of the other candidates. If Biden wins the nomination, I'll work my ass off for him. But I guessing that Biden appeals more to Democratic centrists rather than far lefties like me who support Kucinich (but I could be wrong).

as it goes on. The Gospels are not half so awful, but the Pauline letters which come later in the New Testament take a sharp turn back toward the Old Testament-style creepiness.

I'm all for Thomas Jefferson's approach: He narrowed the Bible down to the four Gospels and then cut out all the supernatural stories, which basically leaves you with the story of a guy who fought against religious intolerance and in favor of acceptance, forgiveness, rehabilitation, and -- especially -- charity toward the impoverished and disenfranchised.

From the most recent Rasmussen head-to-head numbers:

Senator John Edwards (D) leads Senator John McCain (R) 47% to 40%. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey also shows that Edwards has a more intimidating margin over former Governor Mitt Romney (R), 52% to 35%.

A month ago, Edwards held a four point edge over McCain and an eleven point lead over Romney. Even before these latest results, Edwards was the strongest Democratic candidate in general election match-ups.

Contrast Rasmussen's head-to-head numbers for Edwards with the most recent head-to-head Rasmussen numbers for Hillary:

Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton nominally leads Republican Senator John McCain 46% to 45% in the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. But, the Democratic frontrunner easily outpaces former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney 49% to 40%.
...
Hillary Clinton is viewed favorably by 49%, unfavorably by 50%. Those numbers have moved little throughout the year. In the Democratic nomination race, Clinton's lead is holding firm as she routinely draws support in the 40% range.

A Rasmussen Reports national telephone poll of the frontrunners shows that Clinton is neck-and-neck with Giuliani, and enjoys a moderate lead over Thompson.

... and Rasmussen's most recent Obama numbers:

The latest Rasmussen Reports survey of Election 2008 shows Senator Barack Obama now leading Senator John McCain 46% to 41%, and leading former Governor Mitt Romney just 46% to 43%.

Obama has been in a tougher struggle with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani than with such other top GOP contenders as McCain and former Senator Fred Thompson. And until now Obama has enjoyed double-digit advantages over former Governor Mitt Romney in almost every Rasmussen Reports survey of the match-up (see history).

Here's some SurveyUSA numbers from Kentucky:

If there were an election for President of the United States today, and the only two names on the ballot were Republican {name} and Democrat {name}, who would you vote for?

50% Fred Thompson
45% Clinton

54% Fred Thompson
37% Obama

44% Fred Thompson
45% Edwards

46% Romney
46% Clinton

45% Romney
43% Obama

38% Romney
48% Edwards

All our candidates lose to Giuliani in Kentucky, but Edwards is the most competitive with him, and Edwards is the only one who beats both Romney and Thompson.

SurveyUSA numbers from Oklahoma:

If there were an election for President of the United States today, and the only two names on the ballot were Republican {name} and Democrat {name}, who would you vote for?

47% Giuliani
44% Clinton

54% Giuliani
33% Obama

40% Giuliani
49% Edwards

50% Fred Thompson
44% Clinton

55% Fred Thompson
35% Obama

41% Fred Thompson
47% Edwards

44% Romney
47% Clinton

46% Romney
40% Obama

32% Romney
53% Edwards

In Oklahoma, Edwards is our only candidate who beats Giuliani, Thompson, and Romney.

Quinnipiac national numbers (with the responses divided among Red, Blue, and swing Purple states):

If the 2008 election for President were being held today, and the candidates were {name} the Democrat and {name} the Republican, for whom would you vote? (asked of Red state voters, Blue state voters, and Purple swing state voters)

Red - Blue - Purple
44% - 52% - 43% --- Clinton
46% - 40% - 43% --- Giuliani

39% - 47% - 42% --- Obama
45% - 40% - 41% --- Giuliani

42% - 45% - 42% --- Edwards
42% - 43% - 40% --- Giuliani

44% - 52% - 45% --- Clinton
45% - 39% - 40% --- McCain

38% - 49% - 42% --- Obama
44% - 34% - 39% --- McCain

43% - 47% - 45% --- Edwards
40% - 36% - 36% --- McCain

45% - 58% - 47% --- Clinton
42% - 32% - 39% --- Thompson

41% - 56% - 44% --- Obama
38% - 28% - 36% --- Thompson

44% - 55% - 48% --- Edwards
36% - 27% - 33% --- Thompson

Among Red state voters, Hillary loses to Giuliani and McCain and beats Thompson by only 3%. Even among Purple state voters, Hillary doesn't beat Giuliani.

Obama does the same as Hillary in Red states, but at least he beats Giuliani in Purple states.

In Red states, Edwards ties Giuliani and beats both McCain and Thompson with more than twice the margin over Thompson. Edwards also wins in the Purple states by the biggest margins.

Despite these outrageous profits, the drug companies' marketing budgets are two and a half times as large as their research budgets. The drug companies spend $19 billion a year to market their drugs to doctors and over $4 billion a year to market their drugs directly to consumers. Only the USA and New Zealand allow direct marketing of prescription drugs to consumers, and New Zealand is in the process of outlawing that practice.

need a single-payer universal health care system but adopting that system overnight would put a huge sector of the economy out of business and would throw many people out of work.

We need to bite the bullet, but the political costs will not be minimal.

By far, Kucinich has the best health care plan, but there is not sufficient political will to pass his plan.

Edwards plan is, by far, the second best plan. While Edwards does not eliminate the for-profit heath care industry in one step, his plan does combine the second best short-term improvements and also lays down the tracks for the eventual elimination of the for-profit heath care industry.

Here is a really good discussion of why Edwards health care plan is the second best after Kucinich's:

In a crowded field, Edwards' health plan sets him apart by Rob Christensen

“What we have is a dysfunctional health-care system in the United States of America,” Edwards said at a recent Democratic presidential forum on health-care reform. “We need big, bold, dramatic change, not just small change.”

But what kind of plan is Edwards putting forward? Who would it help? Who would pay for it? And does it have any better chance of getting through Congress than the plan backed by the Clintons more than a decade ago?... Edwards is the only major candidate who has laid out a specific plan for making sure that everyone is insured. (Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, a Democratic presidential candidate, has proposed extending Medicare to cover everyone.)... The Edwards plan would require every American to have health insurance by 2012 - the last year of Edwards’ first term if he were elected. The plan would first make health care available to everyone and then require people to carry health insurance, just as motorists must have liability insurance.

The plan is a mix of public and private strategies. Employers would be required to either provide insurance to their employees through a company policy, or to help fund coverage for their workers by contributing to regional nonprofit government entities that Edwards calls health markets.... The health markets would use the economy of scale to negotiate affordable policies through insurers. Uninsured individuals could obtain coverage through a health market. So could employers seeking to provide group policies for their employees.... Health markets would offer traditional plans from private companies such as Blue Cross-Blue Shield, Aetna and Cigna, as well as a government-run plan similar to Medicare, the federal health-insurance program for the elderly. The public-sector plan would resemble Canada’s single-payer system, in which insurance is publicly funded to control costs but doctors and hospitals remain private.

“The idea is to determine whether Americans actually want a private insurer or whether they would rather have a government-run ... single-payer plan,” Edwards said. “We’ll find out over time where people go.” The mix of market and government initiatives makes Edwards’ plan much harder to attack than Clinton’s early 1990s plan, said Leif Wellington Haase of the Century Foundation, a liberal-leaning think tank. “In this plan, the changes happen much more gradually,” Haase said. “Each element has a market element that deflects the attack. I think it’s a very smart political document.”

Although Haase thinks the Edwards plan does not go far enough, conservatives fear it would take the country too far toward government-run care. “It sets up a slippery slope to move toward a single-payer, government-run health care system,” said Mike Tanner of the Cato Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank. “He realizes that Americans are not going to take that in one bite.” Tanner contends that under Edwards’ parallel system, private insurance would be unable to compete with a taxpayer-funded system. The single-payer system, Tanner argued, sounds good. But it would not be popular with citizens because it would ration treatment for expensive and long illnesses, and would discourage pharmaceutical companies from developing new drugs. “Single-payer systems are good if you are not sick,” Tanner said. “They provide routine care at low cost. But they don’t provide intensive, expensive medicine for people with serious illnesses.”...

Edwards is the only candidate to put a price tag on his health reforms - $90 billion to $120 billion per year - which he proposes to pay for by repealing the tax cuts pushed through by President Bush on families with a taxable income of more than $200,000 per year. “I do not believe you can have universal health care without finding a source of revenue,” Edwards said.

The whole discussion is well worth reading: http://www.popmatters.com/pm/news/article/...