Ah, Taylor Marsh, love her but I wish she wouldn't say things like "no one thinks it's affordable" [1] when refering to single payer health care (care where the government pays the bills and you either never see them or pay a small amount). It may not be doable in political terms, but in the total amount of money spent it is actually the cheapest plan, it's just that money comes from the government and your taxes, rather than being paid to an insurance company. Does it matter if you pay a little more taxes and wind up with more money in your pocket at the end of the day because your overall health care costs have gone down? Personally, if I have to pay $500 more taxes a month, but don't have to send Aetna $1,000 a month, I'm feeling mighty far ahead.

Heck, for that matter most first world governments spend less per capita on health care than the US government does [2] (in terms of spending just by the government). And they all have better health care than the US on almost every metric.

Mandates are an awful way to do insurance. It's the car insurance model. How many people are happy with their car insurance?

That said, if you want universal care and you won't do it the smart way (single payor), then you need mandates. So since American politicians are allergic to leading or cutting out special interests like insurers, I guess to get people insured it'll have to be done the wrong way.

So yeah, Edwards' and Clinton's health care plans are better than Obama's. But that ain't saying much.