Although he’s regarded as a sell-out by Harpers, Obama seems to be taking the sensible tack that Hillary Rodham Clinton won’t survive the Democratic primaries based on her pro-Iraq war vote and her incrementalist health care strategy. Today he called for universal care by the end of the next Presidential term.
The AP report seems to think that makes him the same as Hillary and Dennis Kucinich. That’s just ignorance of the press. Clinton has been explicit about doing this incrementally and Kucinich has been explicit about wanting single payer. Obama is, my guess, too smart to lay out any specifics. But an incremental reduction over 10 years in the uninsured rate (as AHIP favors, for example) is not the same as universal insurance by 2010.
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This will be a tall order and one I think too lofty a goal set for failure. Canada’s system was started in 1947 by one province. At that time we did not have anywhere near the pressures facing healthcare now. As well the size of the U.S. population compared to Canada makes managing any system far more challenging (to put it mildly). I think as populations grow the cost and complexities of managing them goes up in exponential amounts. I have included a link to a brief history of Canada’s healthcare system (on going) and it shows the tremendous pressure by profit seekers and influence peddlers who there are working from a catchup postion compared to the U.S. where they are in the drivers seat for controlling political agenda through bribery. What the U.S. doesn’t need is another failed system. Here’s the link:
http://www.healthcoalition.ca/History.pdf
Hillary and Obama have, I believe, very little in common with Dennnis Kucinich. And if course, Bush’s tax credit plan put forth in the State Of The Union Address
also does not address the real issue of Helath Care Delivery in the United States. As long as for-profit HMOs and the insurance industry continue to make decisions for us – as patients and physicians – no relief is in sight. Dennis Kucinich supports a “Medicare-For-All” type of universal health covereage and I believe with him that we are competent and sensible enough to build such a system.
RLS