Last night, we blogged on the Hotline’s report that Dave Loebsack may have endorsed Barack Obama at the Obama rally in Cedar Rapids last night. It seems though that he was just echoing a common practice of Congressman Boswell and appearing as a courtesy at the event, not endorsing. However, Iowa’s Attorney General, Tom Miller, and its State Treasurer, Mike Fitzgerald, did endorse Obama at the Senator’s rally in Ames today. This leaves the Obama campaign about 1,157 Iowans behind Tom Vilsack and closing. Incidentally, Selden Spencer spoke at the Ames event without endorsing Obama. This goes to show that you don’t have to be elected to Congress to speak at a Presidential candidate’s event without an endorsement, you just have to lose by less than 20 points.
In the midst of the stupidity over bloggers and the stupidity over his house, it’s worth noting that John Edwards presented a pretty significant and detailed heath care plan last week. The plan, which was analyzed in detail by Jonathan Cohn at the New Republic, provides universal health care but does so through the use of tax credits to create and fund entities for groups of peopuyle to purchase insurance called “health markets” as well as through an “individual mandate” which is a requirement that everyone b insured. It also allows Medicare to compete with private insurers to provide coverage to people through health markets. It is a complex plan that would be funded by rolling back the Bush tax cuts. Although it has the advantage of “giving people who have insurance something they lack now–more security and more choice–without taking away their coverage,” the complexity this engenders makes it difficult to sell. As Cohn notes “grafting universal coverage onto an already complicated system inevitably means drawing up a complicated plan. That’s not particularly helpful in the current media environment.”
The alternative is a straightforward single payer system like that in a bill before Congress, HR 676, that was introduced by John Conyers (and co-sponsored by Dave Loebsack.) This is the system used in the rest of the western world, which leads to significantly lower health care costs than what we have. A single payer plan would be much more effective but is considered less politically feasible. As a result, it is doubtful that any other serious candidate will advocate for it (as opposed to hopeless publicity seekers). However, it is still possible. The national debate on health care is moving increasingly towards a single payer solution. Edwards, by introducing his plan, laid down his marker but, as the debate develops, other candidates who either seek to flank him on the left or merely keep up with the national debate may introduce single payer plans similar to HR 676. In meantime, we will just have to wait and see what their policy teams cook up.
Barack Obama pledged in his annoucement yesterday that “we will have universal health care in America by the end of the next president’s first term.” However, he hasn’t unveiled his plan yet. In the meantime, John Edwards has been the first candidate to unveil a detailed health care plan. It may not be perfect but it is definitely worthy of respect.
