Democratic Candidates Tout Universal Coverage for Kids
Democratic presidential candidates former Sen. John Edwards (N.C.), Sens. Barack Obama (Ill.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (Ohio) on Friday at an annual conference sponsored by the National Urban League said that they support universal health insurance for children, Long Island Newsday reports (Evans, Long Island Newsday, 7/28).
At the conference, Edwards said that he supports a universal health insurance system for all U.S. residents, adding that he would make changes to the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries.
"The system is rigged, it's broken," Edwards said, adding, "We will never create one America until we fix the system" (Mannies, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 7/28).
Obama praised the Harlem Children's Zone, a coalition of 15 community centers in upper Manhattan that provides health care, nutrition and other services to at-risk children (Long Island Newsday, 7/28).
Kucinich said that the U.S. could have used the $1 trillion spent on the war in Iraq to fund a universal health insurance system. He added, "The money is there. The question is whether the will is there" (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 7/28).
National Urban League President Marc Morial said that, although the group invited Republican presidential candidates to the conference, none attended (Long Island Newsday, 7/28).
Democratic candidates for the first time in more than 10 years have received more campaign contributions from health care professionals than Republican candidates, the AP/Wichita Eagle reports.
According to the AP/Eagle, the shift has resulted because "Democrats now control Congress and Democratic presidential candidates are raising more money than are Republicans."
Jonathan Oberlander, a health care politics expert at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, said, "The health care industry wants to influence the majority in Congress, and ... they are reading the same tea leaves as everyone else that suggest the Democrats could have good results in the 2008 elections" (Kuhnhenn, AP/Wichita Eagle, 7/29).