We already know this. Only all the money is enough for these crew of buccaneers. Does anyone think that the business community or economic elites did poorly under Clinton? No. But they bailed on the Democrats precisely because the fact that the hoi polloi stopped doing worse under Clinton. I.e., There was some money on the table and they didn't get it. All the money always belongs to them. Under Bush it was not enough to take all the money, they've even taken all of tomorrow's money.

The notion that the folks who created this track record would tolerate having to get less than all the money so that ordinary citizens could get decent health care is laughable.

There is a class war and Bush and his friends are winning it.

Surely single payer would be the way to get (non-health insurance) businesses on board with national health care, since it saves them money. What good do all these complicated mandate plans do corporations with massive health care bills?

Wouldn't a single-payer plan, i.e. full on government-funded health care, be more likely to draw support from the corporate sector? Taking the responsibility for health care off of them, and putting it on the public sector - wouldn't corporations see that as a pretty good deal?

But maybe I'm missing something.

"Taking the responsibility for health care off of them, and putting it on the public sector - wouldn't corporations see that as a pretty good deal?

But maybe I'm missing something."

I think what's missing is "who pays for it"? If the Federal Govt taxes them for it instead, they may prefer to keep things the way they are, where they may have more capacity to determine whether or not they even need to offer it to their employees.

Or, maybe they only need offer it to some of their employees, etc. If the government isn't involved they can test the employment market by floating jobs without benefits and find out.

Meanwhile the smarmy politicians penalties on them for doing so will be light; the penalty on those employed without benefits rather more substantial, just like Mitt Romney set it up in MA.

"Wouldn't a single-payer plan, i.e. full on government-funded health care, be more likely to draw support from the corporate sector?"

The problem with immediately moving to single-payer is that then you're telling the 85% of the public currently with insurance that you're going to drastically change their situation.

That allows opponents of reform to quite easily scare them into opposing reform by painting what will come as being worse than what they currently have.

And at that point, your problem becomes public opinion polls, and thus Congresscritters who will be facing re-election.

The beauty of the Edwards plan is that it doesn't threaten voters who like their current healthcare.

"On some level, the candidate who I think gets both ends of that the best is Hillary Clinton"

If Senator Clinton truly understood the politics of this as well as Edwards, why wasn't it her that came up with the specifics of the healthcare plan?

If Senator Clinton truly understood the politics of this as well as Edwards, why doesn't she understand the usefulness of getting the most difficult parts of the plan - things like details of the mandate and details of where the subsidy funding comes from - out before the election and not after?

And what in Senator Clinton's past or present gives you any indication that she'll engage in "an aggressive national campaign to mobilize public support and ensure the initial bargaining happens in context of..."

"The beauty of the Edwards plan is that it doesn't threaten voters who like their current healthcare."

By which you mean, of course, that it penalizes, instead, those people already least likely to resist, right?

That's a pretty predatory "progressive" government you have there. Almost makes *me* want to give my money to Mr. Liberty, RON PAUL.

"By which you mean, of course, that it penalizes, instead, those people already least likely to resist, right?"

Ummm, no.

Who, exactly, do you think it "penalizes"?

The poor get healthcare for free. The middle-class gets a subsidy to make their healthcare cheaper.

The only people it "penalizes" are those folks making more than $200,000 per year, who will find their taxes going up a bit.

Yeah, okay.

You have to be pretty fucking stupid to think that having the government force the underemployed to suck up yet another bill is not a penalty. If someone has assets to protect and Edwards' plan is affordable, they will enroll.

If not, well, tough shit.

"If someone has assets to protect and Edwards' plan is affordable, they will enroll."

Well, no. Under the Edwards plan, everyone will be automatically enrolled with healthcare coverage, whether they have "assets to protect" or not.

Look, I understand. You support Ron Paul. You're a libertarian. You probably don't like Social Security either. You don't think we're all in the same boat.

Happily, America is a democracy, and we have elections to decide which direction to go in as a nation.

Please Petey don't let that evil huckster John Edwards force free healthcare on me. I want the market to decide if my children get to see a doctor when they are sick.

Edwards would be better at it. Clinton can be tied to the poor stats that occurred under her watch.

"Well, no. Under the Edwards plan, everyone will be automatically enrolled with healthcare coverage, whether they have "assets to protect" or not."

Well, bully for you, you fucking stupid gullible nitwit, if you really, actually think that he or any Democrat in the US in the 2000s can turn that into a French style welfare system rather than the wage-ganishing system of peonage that he has actually proposed.

By they way, how much money does he have in hedge funds?

I am not a libertarian. But it never escapes my notice what I may need to resort to tomorrow. Or do you not pay any attention to what is going out there, preferring to live in Dr. Feelgood's little spin doctored pile of horse shit?

You deserve everything you have coming to you.

Anonymous' critique of Edwards' health plan is a little over the top, but he's right that it is fundamentally immoral to require the poor to purchase health care, and anyone who believes that the subsidies will be sufficient or will keep up with health care costs (which rise faster than the rate of inflation) is probably waiting for Santa to come down the chimney right now.