I have been behind Edwards for awhile now, after a flirtation with Obama. I'm almost 50 years old, my first vote was for Carter, and I grew up in the JFK-MLK-RFK-Nixon era.
Edwards fought these forces for years in the courtroom, and now wants to fight them in the public sphere. Obama's biggest accomplishment using his methods is covering 150,000 more people in Illinois with health insurance. While a accomplishment, 1.75M out of a total of 12.5M remain uninsured. Why?
I have one simple reason for preferring Edwards: he knows it is going to be a real fight, as powerful, entrenched interests don't like their money or power taken away. To me, Obama's method of negotiation results in what an Illinois insurance lobbyist stated:
"Barack is a very reasonable person who clearly recognized the various roles involved in the healthcare system, [he] understood our concern that we didn't want a predetermined outcome."
Which led to less than 10% of the uninsured being covered. And that's not good enough for me.
This diary is built on some comments I've made in the last few days. First, this one:
He helped cover 150,000, 1.75M remain uninsured
In a population of around 12.5 million. The bill started out as a plan to cover all Illinois residents. Then:
By the time the legislation passed the Senate, in May 2004, Obama had written three successful amendments, at least one of which made key changes favorable to insurers.
Most significant, universal healthcare became merely a policy goal instead of state policy - the proposed commission, renamed the Adequate Health Care Task Force, was charged only with studying how to expand healthcare access. In the same amendment, Obama also sought to give insurers a voice in how the task force developed its plan.
Lobbyists praised Obama for taking the insurance industry's concerns into consideration.
"Barack is a very reasonable person who clearly recognized the various roles involved in the healthcare system," said Phil Lackman, a lobbyist for insurance agents and brokers. Obama "understood our concern that we didn't want a predetermined outcome."
In one attempt at a deal, Obama approached the Campaign for Better Health Care with insurers' concerns, asking if the group would consider a less stringent mandate than requiring the state to come up with a universal healthcare plan. The coalition decided not to bend, said Jim Duffett, the group's executive director.
"The concept of the Health Care Justice Act was to bring the sides - the different perspectives and stakeholders - to the table," Duffett said. "In this situation, Obama was being a conduit from the insurance industry to us."
Obama later watered down the bill after hearing from insurers and after a legal precedent surfaced during the debate indicating that it would be unconstitutional for one legislative assembly to pass a law requiring a future legislative assembly to craft a healthcare plan.
During debate on the bill on May 19, 2004, Obama portrayed himself as a conciliatory figure. He acknowledged that he had "worked diligently with the insurance industry," as well as Republicans, to limit the legislation's reach and noted that the bill had undergone a "complete restructuring" after industry representatives "legitimately" raised fears that it would result in a single-payer system.
"The original presentation of the bill was the House version that we radically changed - we radically changed - and we changed in response to concerns that were raised by the insurance industry," Obama said, according to the session transcript.
Sources:
http://www.mchc.com/...
http://quickfacts.census.gov/...
Boston Globe
I also have concerns about his electability, as the only national level race he has won was against a carpet-bagging Alan Keyes in a state that went for Clinton, Clinton, Gore, and Kerry by 500,000 vote margins. How is he going to do in Florida, in Arkansas, in Arizona, in Colorado, etc? Is America truly ready for a black First Lady? I'm not trying to be racist, just realistic.
Those last two sentences I very much hesitated to put in there, but decided I had to as they are reality. As much as I hate to admit it.
On the other hand, Edwards plan has a brilliant silver bullet in it that sets up regional public health care plans in direct competition with private insurance companies. This offers employers a way to save money while covering their employees, and shows the public that"socialized" health care actually could work here, like it does in the rest of the world. I detailed this in this comment:
The formation of public, non-profit health care markets:
Third: New Health Care Markets.
The U.S. government will help states and groups of states create regional Health Care Markets, non-profit purchasing pools that offer a choice of competing insurance plans. At least one plan would be a public program based upon Medicare. All plans will include comprehensive benefits, including full mental health benefits. Families and businesses could choose to supplement their coverage with additional benefits. The markets will be available to everyone who does not get comparable insurance from their jobs or a public program and to employers that choose to join rather than offer their own insurance plans. The benefits of Health Care Markets include:
• Freedom and Security: Health Care Markets will give participants a choice among affordable, quality plans. Americans can keep Health Care Market plans when they change or lose their jobs, start new businesses, or take time off for caregiving.
• Choice between Public and Private Insurers: Health Care Markets will offer a choice between private insurers and a public insurance plan modeled after Medicare, but separate and apart from it. Families and individuals will choose the plan that works best for them. This American solution will reward the sector that offers the best care at the best price. Over time, the system may evolve toward a single-payer approach if individuals and businesses prefer the public plan.
• Promoting Affordable Care: Health Care Markets will negotiate low premiums through their economies of scale so they can get a better deal than individuals and many businesses can get on their own. Health Care Markets will also hold down administrative costs by reducing the need for underwriting and marketing activities (two-thirds of private insurers’ overhead), centrally collecting premiums, and exercising leadership to reduce costs on billing practices, claims processing, and electronic medical records. Finally, they will be able to work with insurers to adopt cost-effective approaches to health care like preventive care and to collect the data necessary to drive quality improvement. [Woolhandler et al, 2003]
• Reducing Burdens for Businesses: By assuming the administrative role of negotiating benefit plans with insurers and collecting premiums, Health Care Markets will minimize administrative burdens for participating businesses and other employers. Businesses that opt into the markets will only have to make financial contributions to the cost of covering their employees through markets, similar to their role in Social Security and Medicare.
This is a silver bullet designed to undermine the hold that private insurance companies have on the market.
And it will gain support from the rest of the business community that is getting really sick of being bent over a barrel by the health insurance industry. It gives them a way to ignore the insurance industry while saving money while providing health insurance.
This is why I like Edwards plan better than the others.
And the mandates 1) won't happen until the other parts are in place, and 2) will be enforced through signup when signing up for school, checking into an ER or doctor's office, etc. It's not going to be some draconian thing that hunts you down and fines you.
If you are a parent or child, you will be subsidized up to 250% of the poverty line or about $100,000. And the burden is going to be shifted to those that benefit the most from Bush's tax cuts.
Source: http://www.johnedwards.com/...
I like Edwards future ideas, and I don't like Obama's past performance and future ideas on this critical issue.
I watched and listened several times to both Obama and Edwards closing speeches in Iowa on CSPAN last night. Not to just the candidates but to their supporters. I found Edwards supporters more into it:
I was looking for that magical charisma that Obama has, and it wasn't much there. People were yawning behind him, and one old guy even seemed to go to sleep for a while on stage. Obama spoke about change, and how we needed to come together as a country. He seems like a nice guy, but I really didn't detect all that much fire in his belly.
Edwards was on fire. He had to stop when people would yell back, people were wiping tears from their eyes, he had Iowa's first lady and a popular congressman, his mom and dad, his kids (Cate has absolutely mesmerizing eyes), his campaign managers, and a bunch of union folks up on stage with him. He spoke with much more passion than Obama, simple as that. Not to many little jokes, just on message, on fire. Very impressive.
Personally, after watching the Republicans stonewall us at every juncture for the last decade or more, I want someone that is willing to fight. That's Edwards.
Yes, Cate's eyes were smoldering...
But what really was kind of different was that it was just Obama up there by himself, while Edwards had all this family and political supporters up on stage along with the sign-waving supporters behind them. It was a very striking difference.
I don't want to seem like I hate Obama, I don't. But I have some issues with recent disingenuous statements that I think are really beneath him. The first is this:
"And that's why the polls show that I'm the only Democrat who, right now, beats every Republican they can throw up there."
Anybody who is following this knows Edwards does pretty good against them all as well.
But the bigger deal to me is his statement about PACs and lobbyists. I go into that in this comment, "His words last night were, from my Tivo":
"When we started this campaign and I said I won't take PAC money and federal lobbyist money..."
and
"If you believe than we can go ahead and tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda are over--they have not funded my campaign, they will not run my White House..."
Federal lobbyists are by statute limited by the same individual monetary limits as regular people. The practice is to encourage your employees, at Goldman Sachs for example, to give the maximum to a chosen candidate, which hopefully will provide you with a seat at the table when your interests are at stake.
And Obama has said many times he plans on giving all parties a seat at the table.
From http://www.opensecrets.org/...
Barack's top donors by industry:
1 Lawyers/Law Firms $7,940,424
2 Retired $4,955,387
3 Securities & Investment $4,505,199
4 Misc Business $2,510,077
5 Real Estate $2,292,188
6 TV/Movies/Music $2,203,317
7 Education $2,112,520
8 Business Services $2,073,202
9 Health Professionals $1,330,743
10 Misc Finance $1,291,272
And remember that "Retired" refers to the AARP, which is completely in bed with the drug and insurance companies.
Here is his PAC contribution breakdown:
(in thousands)
Business $3,250 26%
Labor $0 0%
Ideological/Single Issue $9,237 74%
Source: http://www.opensecrets.org/...
Compare this to John Edwards:
(in thousands)
Business $500 4%
Labor $6,000 52%
Ideological/Single Issue $5,087 44%
Source: http://www.opensecrets.org/...
Both have received 99% of their money from individual contributions, and both have received the most donations from lawyers and the legal industry.
He also said, quoted straight from my Tivo:
"And that's why the polls show that I'm the only Democrat who, right now, beats every Republican they can throw up there."
Which we both know is rather disingenuous.
What's interesting is that Edwards amd Obama's messages are very similar in some ways. Both want to unite someone-Obama Red America and Blue America against Washington, Edwards the lower and middle classes against corporate power. Many of their goals are virtually identical, with small differences in implementation details, like the mandate fight in health care.
But Obama does a whole riff on hope, on how hope created America, ended slavery, got women the vote, won WW2 and won the civil rights battle. My history reads that every one of those things required a hell of a fight, not just hope.
Edwards talks about the fight that is going to be required to change things.
I personally find Edwards message and methods much more compelling.
Simple as that.
Give'em hell, John!