It's not that the people don't want it—we do—it's that only Krugman is talking openly about how the two candidates differ on this and who, besides us and the "elite" who read the NYT are aware of this?

Obama will get the nod because the corpo powers that be have anointed him. They would not have done so if they felt in any way threatened. That's why you an I and so many others who hang out here and FDL and Kos and all the other places where high information people go were for Edwards.

Sad.

*Comforting the Afflicted and Afflicting the Comfortable*

so I'm glad the first post I saw was yours.

Spotted this at Kos yesterday. It's still up today with a staggering number of comments and recommends.

A Kossak who goes by the charming name of Grassroots Mom went to the Library of Congress website and looked up the respective histories of what Hillary and Obama actually accomplished as U.S. Senators.

She didn't bother looking at votes. She just focused on which bills each candidate cared enough about to introduce and how successful they were in getting support and getting their legislation passed.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/2/20/201332/807/36/458633

Edwards would be ahead. IMO, mandates isn't universal health care, no matter how many times Clinton says it is. Face the fact: both of their plans suck.

But candidates aren't salad bars. As a voter, I can't take Obama's war stance, Hillary's health care plan, John Edward's plan for poverty, and make one candidate out of them. As they say: you picks your poison and you live with it. You can try to boil the entire decision down to Iraq and Healthcare, but that is oversimplification on a grand scale.

There are things I like better about Hillary, but on the whole I think Barak is a much better president for the USA at this time. I also take into account what Krugman says (writes), but it is not the sum basis for my decision.

Ian, I think one must give a little bit more credit to the American people. Perhaps they do realize that Clinton's plan is too "radical" (for Wall Street, that is) & consequently has a next to 0% chance of success in the first year of a presidency. Still, if she gets to the White House & succeeds in having it passed, so much the better. But Obama has an advantage, too. Obama's plan, according to a couple of evaluation that I've read*, has a step-wise quality to it that would make it less threatening to corporate interests and consequently he has a better chance of getting their cooperation without which, let's face it, nothing would get done. His is a case, I think, of "a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush."

[* I have not been able to retrace those. I'll give it a try later.]

Again, how is it that Hillary "Health Care Lobbyists Support My Campaign" Clinton is the one to deliver health care reform? 1( That doesn't make sense. 2) She stole Edwards plan just so she could look better, not cause she was serious about it. 3) She has a record of having failed in the fight for health care reform. So isn't trying the same thing (getting Hillary Clinton in there to head up health care reform) equivalent with the definition of insanity - trying to do the same thing again but expecting a different result? Only this time she has less credibility and is as polarizing as ever. So again, does anyone really think that SHE can get it passed, even if she were serious about it (which I doubt)?

Americans truly do not 'get' the concept of universal health care, and their not getting it is helped if not actually caused by the health insurance & drug industries. Health insurance in the USA makes me think of the Hawaiian quip about the 19th century missionaries, "They came to do good and did very well thank you"

The first misconception is that with universal health care the quality of care will plummet and we will all be forced into a Kafkaesque system where we will all stand in line waiting to be denied essential care.

Nothing could be further from the truth if you have any experience of a universal health system. Even the UK national health, which is more rampantly socialist and rigid than most in the free world, allows if not encourages the concept of private insurance. If you are able to afford private insurance nothing changes.

I don't understand HOW anyone can say that the 47 million plus Americans who have no health coverage at all are be better off without universal coverage! A friend who is a health professional said "But they can always go to the emergency room can't they?" Obviously she has never been to an inner city emergency room. How is it better to do without health care if you have a life threatening condition? You die faster and leave more room on the planet for the privileged? How can you justify healthcare for a jailed convicted murderer but not for a minimum wage working single mother and her dependant children?

Apart from anything else it makes no sense at all to pay for emergency care (bottom line we all do just that via increased charges for those with insurance to cover the losses on those who don't) when we could pay much less for preventive care. It is a lot cheaper to give a diabetic insulin than to hospitalize him/her, or amputate limbs. How much more cost effective to prevent someone with pre-diabetes, who will become a Type 2 diabetic (80% - 90% of diabetics) from getting to the insulin dependent stage? This is done with lifestyle changes, diet, exercise and often tablets.

America is a wonderful place with wonderful people. How can you not be ashamed to be the ONLY country among those at the same development stage without universal healthcare? Not only is healthcare a basic human need but it is also a human right.

She is not my preferred candidate.

Was her failure her fault? Who or what blocked the reform? Was the failure due to her lack of preparation, or vision, some essential flaw in the plan? Or was the failure due to a heavily funded and well organized campaign by corporations who's obscene profits were threatened by it?

Regarding the statement: "So the real problem with Clinton, and it's a big one, is that she won't admit she made a mistake voting for the war."

She's actually admitted the vote was a mistake and said if she had it to do over she wouldn't vote that way. What she hasn't done is "apologize." Edwards did, and the media hounded Hillary to do that also.

clinton's health plan is better than obama's, but not by much. individual mandates is simply a crappy way to get universal healthcare (not only do they not work, but it maintains the stupid and wasteful private health insurance middle men that are the real problem in our system). frankly, i don't think either will do what it takes to fix our health care system, though both are better than the extremely sucky status quo.

and obama's better on foreign policy for more reasons that just iraq. the fact that he didn't vote for kyle-lieberman and would engage in direct talks with iran suggest that he is the only candidate who is willing to really ditch the destructive neo-con style of foreign affairs.

just my two cents.

neither of them has a plan to fix the US system. the problem with the US system is that it's based on the idea of health care as a commodity, like flat screen TVs and iPhones. this is incredible because everybody in the country, when it comes right down to it, believes that every man, woman and child needs access to health care when they're sick. even (most?) republicans doesn't want to see people walking around on the streets dying from uncomplicated pneumonia - at the very least it's gross. the question is how to get there. hillary and obama are focused on expanding access to insurance. this misses the point, intentionally. as moore points out visually (i just saw sicko again this morning) and plenty of other people have pointed out and experienced personally, having access to insurance does not equal having access to health care.

the US health care system is set up to make money. the clinton and obama plans, although different, are both set up to reform a broken system that needs a revolution. improving coverage for poor kids, or improving pharmaceutical access for old people, or giving catastrophic coverage insurance to 20 year olds doesn't solve the problem. it gets rid of the most visible defects of the system - vulnerable people getting fucked. and it gets rid of the minor defects so that the rest of us, people with private insurance, will keep paying 50% more per person than the next most expensive country for more procedures and worse health care.

the US doesn't need health care reform. it needs a new health care system. the insurance industry knows this, which is why they're willing to debate Universal Health Care, which leaves them in the picture. obama and clinton are well aware of this; that's why the insurance industry pays them. neither candidate gives a shit about health care access for all americans if it comes at any significant loss of revenue for industry. yes, clinton's plan is slightly less bad than obama's. but both plans 1) continue to give private insurance an undeserved seat at the table, and 2) will be much more watered down by the time it gets into law.

Did you see the Bunk study stating 2/3 of doctors in America want National Health Care. The doctors who did this study also conducted one in 2002 and found that the majority of doctors did not want national health care, the problem with this is that the 2 question surveys drastically differ in there 2nd question. I found this article, 60% of Physicians Surveyed Oppose Switching to a National Health Care Plan, It's worth a read.