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2007-9-3 13:42:12 |
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With healthcare dominating headlines these days, it seems that all 2008 Presidential hopefuls will rely on it to take them to the White House. The latest to jump into the Universal Healthcare quagmire is Democratic hopeful John Edwards. His plan to make health care insurance compulsory, but by raising taxes to the tune of $120 billion annually has irked many anti-tax increase groups. Edwards' plan titled "Universal Health Care through Shared Responsibility" is displayed prominently on his website. Edwards says that the American health care system is "broken" and that the time has now come to implement reforms that "covers everyone, cuts costs, and provides better care." He added that the first step in providing universal coverage would be to raise taxes for Americans with annual incomes above $200,000. Presently there are 47 million uninsured U.S. residents and this has become a big worry for the administration. The states are trying either own methods of providing universal health insurance in order to keep the medical costs under control. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, many states have tried to provide some sort of coverage to the uninsured population and have come close on several occasions. In 1974 Hawaii passed a law requiring employers to provide coverage for all workers who logged in 20 hours per week. However, this law has met with minimal success at best since more than 10 percent of the state's population remains uninsured. Minnesota and Vermont tried to provide universal coverage in 1992 but both states met with failure since the language used in the bills concerning the universal coverage was repealed. Last year Gov Mitt Romney tried a formula in Massachusetts that met with limited success. Last month California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger took the first step toward making health insurance mandatory by announcing that the $12 billion required would be partially funded through fees on employers, hospitals and doctors. John Edwards is the first candidate to provide a detailed plan as he goes about explaining how he plans to provide health care coverage for all Americans by 2012. His rival Senator Barack Obama has also made similar promises, but has no concrete plan at present. Edwards has provided in-depth analysis on universal health coverage and has said that this could be achieved by law reform, restructuring health care costs, introducing tax credits as well as extending the state sponsored schemes like Medicaid and SCHIP. An interesting idea in his blueprint for health insurance for all is the creation of "Health Markets", which will give quality health care of a competitive nature. Employers will either have to provide complete health coverage or help employees pay for insurance. "The bottom line is we're asking everybody to share in the responsibility of making health care work in this country. Employers, those who are in the medical insurance business, employees, the American people -- everyone will have to contribute in order to make this work," Edwards said. Meanwhile anti-tax increase group Club for Growth says that Edwards plan will not work because of the massive tax increase required, "John Edwards talks about 'two Americas,'" Pat Toomey, the group's president told ABC News. "But there is only one America and its taxpayers think they should be allowed to keep more of their hard-earned money ¡ª not less." |
