edwards is making more and more sense to me, as a canadian, for an american president. the debate on healthcare seems to skirt or avoid the idea that has taken off across europe and in canada, of having a federal healthcare system that people pay into via taxes.

why is the idea of having NHS or the french healthcare system so frightening to america?

So, Obama wants to subsidize the insurance industries and Hillary wants to force all Americans to pay private companies? I'm no expert on this stuff, just trying to understand if I got this right. How is "Capitalist Medicine" or "Fascist Medicine" better than Socialized Medicine?

Fascist Medicine? How dare you say such a thing! Haven't you been reading the Jonah Goldberg threads? Nobody from the left could possibly be a fascist! It's an oxymoron. Only conservatives could be fascists. Watch your step! You're getting dangerously close to blasphemy.

Drudwy - it frightens me because it sounds just like social security. They've been taking it out of all my paychecks without consent, and I and many others have a very bad feeling that when it comes time for me to get it back, it won't be there. What's to stop them from dipping into the nation health fund (or whatever) to pay their bills, and then pass the void on to the next generation of congressmen to deal with?

that comes down to how it's written. universal healthcare in most countries is an entire department. ministry of health, in canada and the UK for example. "dipping into" a department is against federal regulations insofar as i am aware in your country, so it would be like stealing money from the mint.

the other thing is it's a budget item, not a standing pot. it has to come up for review and have an approved budget every year, based on numbers and illness rates and have a supplary for epidemics, but also has advantages in terms of thing like people going to the doctors for colds and lfus BEFORE they become endemic and start disrupting the workplace and such.

in the end, the choice is about balance. considering the HMOs are clearing the bank while denying care in many cases, wouldn't it be better to at least know if you're sick, the treatment is automatically approved?

The problem as some have already mentioned is structure. The American model is not built to sustain a true one payer system at the moment because our system has grown up around the idea of unregulated drug companies, a very regulated and regimented medical profession, and a health care industry that relies on money transfers from people to insurance companies to medical caretakers.

The only way to fix this is to reform the system, but that is a tremendous undertaking. What Clinton and Obama propose are both half measures that insure that the existing system stays fundamentally in place. One argues that the government should simply throw money at insurance companies in the hope that they will make things cheaper for the end user, the other argues that we should subsidize people directly and hope that they opt to use the money we throw to them to pay for health care. none of this will work because it maintains the middleman in the process, the for profit insurance company. the other problem is that the government is simply hands off when it comes to the medical profession. have you ever wondered why doctors charge $100 for a 10 minute visit? Well, ask first how much it costs to get a medical education in this country (about $250,000), or how many new medical schools have opened in the last decade. the medical profession restricts the supply of doctors and the medical schools charge through the nose for the privilege of attendance to the few who do get into the schools. That combined with virtually unregulated pharma companies makes it almost impossible to reform this without changing the system.

If people want real change, then the medical profession and the way it is run has to be changed, the insurance company and its profit motive has to be eliminated (make them non-profit and introduce a single payer system as alternative) and finally the pharma profits have to be controlled. All of this means taking on several very large and powerful industries at once (medical, legal, insurance, pharma). Im not sure even Edwards is up to that challenge, but certainly not Clinton or Obama.

I gotta say, I agree with Obama here. I'm all for every american having health insurance, but if you're going to make it like auto-insurance policy by FORCING me to get coverage whether I want it or not, I'll pass.

Auto-insurance is highway robbery. I pay my premium on time every month, but when my wife got into a fender bender in last month's blizzard, we had to pay the majority of the damage to our car due to the $500 deductible.

Its fine and dandy that you want everyone to be covered. But when you're going to involve the corporate slime-balls into the whole deal, you've lost all my support.

But when you're going to involve the corporate slime-balls into the whole deal, you've lost all my support.

I think you're overlooking this feature of the Edwards plan.

Edwards plan offers a 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

http://www.johnedwards.com/about/issues/health-care-overview.pdf

This is one of primary reasons I support Edwards.

Hillary mentioned the health care system employed by congress. I've heard about this before, but it's never been explained properly. What is she talking about?

Dave,

Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan