Edwards Highlights Health Care in Bid for Presidency
Former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) has "made health care reform one of his signature issues in his quest for the White House" and is the "only major candidate who has laid out a specific plan for making sure that everyone is insured," the Raleigh News & Observer reports.
Edwards sent a DVD outlining his plan to every active Democratic household in Iowa.
Edwards' proposal would mandate that all U.S. residents have health insurance by 2012 and would use both public and private strategies. He has "defied conventional political wisdom" by saying that he would increase taxes to fund his plan, according to the News & Observer.
Opposition from the insurance companies and conservatives helped derail former President Clinton's plan to implement universal health care in the 1990s, but "the political climate has rapidly changed," in part because of rising health care costs and growing numbers of uninsured, the News & Observer reports (Christensen, Raleigh News & Observer, 5/6).