Democratic Strategy - Healthcare

The Democratic platform needs a healthcare plank that does more than promise higher taxes and a bigger bureaucracy; it must persuade people that the Democrats will make them healthier.

In order to do that, the Democrats need to get out of the mindset of identifying healthcare with health insurance.  Insurance, after all, only ameliorates the financial risk of a need for treatment: it does nothing to make that treatment available.  What will make treatment available to the 45 million Americans without health insurance, and what will drive down healthcare prices, is an expansion of the government's existing healthcare institutions.