2.06.2007
Edwards Details His Health Care Proposal (NYTimes.com)
By JOHN M. BRODER
Published: February 6, 2007
WASHINGTON, Feb. 5 — John Edwards proposed a detailed plan on Monday to provide health care coverage to the 47 million Americans who now go without, becoming the first major presidential candidate to do so.
Mr. Edwards’s plan is ambitious and expensive, adding as much as $120 billion a year to the nation’s health care bill. Money for the proposal would come from increased taxes on well-to-do families, from new fees to be paid by companies that refuse to provide health insurance for their workers and through steps to streamline the delivery of health services.
Mr. Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina, was the Democrats’ vice-presidential nominee in 2004.
The Edwards plan is a pastiche of ideas that have been introduced at the state and federal levels, including some that have been derailed by opposition from business groups, doctors and health insurers.
Mr. Edwards, in an interview on Monday, described the American health care delivery system as dysfunctional and said that incremental steps would not cure it. “This proposal embraces the concept of shared responsibility to provide universal health care,” he said.
The plan would be partly financed by eliminating tax cuts for households earning more than $200,000 a year, cuts that Congress approved in the Bush administration. Mr. Edwards said he would also offset the program’s cost by using the estimated $15 billion in capital gains taxes that go uncollected each year by requiring brokerage houses to report capital gains from taxpayers’ stock sales to the Internal Revenue Service, just as interest and dividend income is reported now.
Mr. Edwards also said that billions of dollars could be saved by making the health system more efficient and investing more in preventive care. The Edwards plan would provide tax credits or subsidies to low-income families who cannot afford health insurance, expand Medicare and the federal program of health care for children, and create a federal health insurance agency that could become the basis for a single-payer system that would eventually do away with private health insurance.
Drew Altman, president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, which studies the American health care system, praised Mr. Edwards, saying he was the first candidate in the 2008 presidential race to offer a credible and comprehensive plan to cover the uninsured. But Mr. Altman also said the plan faced high practical and political hurdles.
(More ... New York Times > Politics)
Published: February 6, 2007
WASHINGTON, Feb. 5 — John Edwards proposed a detailed plan on Monday to provide health care coverage to the 47 million Americans who now go without, becoming the first major presidential candidate to do so.
Mr. Edwards’s plan is ambitious and expensive, adding as much as $120 billion a year to the nation’s health care bill. Money for the proposal would come from increased taxes on well-to-do families, from new fees to be paid by companies that refuse to provide health insurance for their workers and through steps to streamline the delivery of health services.
Mr. Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina, was the Democrats’ vice-presidential nominee in 2004.
The Edwards plan is a pastiche of ideas that have been introduced at the state and federal levels, including some that have been derailed by opposition from business groups, doctors and health insurers.
Mr. Edwards, in an interview on Monday, described the American health care delivery system as dysfunctional and said that incremental steps would not cure it. “This proposal embraces the concept of shared responsibility to provide universal health care,” he said.
The plan would be partly financed by eliminating tax cuts for households earning more than $200,000 a year, cuts that Congress approved in the Bush administration. Mr. Edwards said he would also offset the program’s cost by using the estimated $15 billion in capital gains taxes that go uncollected each year by requiring brokerage houses to report capital gains from taxpayers’ stock sales to the Internal Revenue Service, just as interest and dividend income is reported now.
Mr. Edwards also said that billions of dollars could be saved by making the health system more efficient and investing more in preventive care. The Edwards plan would provide tax credits or subsidies to low-income families who cannot afford health insurance, expand Medicare and the federal program of health care for children, and create a federal health insurance agency that could become the basis for a single-payer system that would eventually do away with private health insurance.
Drew Altman, president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, which studies the American health care system, praised Mr. Edwards, saying he was the first candidate in the 2008 presidential race to offer a credible and comprehensive plan to cover the uninsured. But Mr. Altman also said the plan faced high practical and political hurdles.
(More ... New York Times > Politics)
Labels: 2008 election, Edwards, Health Care, New York Times
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