2008: Edwards on Health, Campaign Cash
By Sarah Wheaton
The Caucus Question of the Day: Would you be willing to pay higher taxes so that everyone could have health insurance?
Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama have both called for universal health coverage, but John Edwards, the 2004 Democratic vice presidential candidate, is the first out of the gate with an actual plan.
The proposal would add as much as $120 billion to the nation’s health care bill, and Mr. Edwards has said very bluntly that paying for it would require a tax hike, especially on wealthier families.
The Times’s John M. Broder has more:
The plan would be partly financed by eliminating tax cuts for households earning more than $200,000 a year, cuts that Congress approved in the Bush administration. Mr. Edwards said he would also offset the program’s cost by using the estimated $15 billion in capital gains taxes that go uncollected each year by requiring brokerage houses to report capital gains from taxpayers’ stock sales to the Internal Revenue Service, just as interest and dividend income is reported now.
Mr. Edwards also said that billions of dollars could be saved by making the health system more efficient and investing more in preventive care. The Edwards plan would provide tax credits or subsidies to low-income families who cannot afford health insurance, expand Medicare and the federal program of health care for children, and create a federal health insurance agency that could become the basis for a single-payer system that would eventually do away with private health insurance.
The former North Carolina senator plans to go over his plan in South Carolina, site of the first southern primary, on Thursday.
Republicans are thrilled with Mr. Edwards’s plan. From The Wall Street Journal:
Patrick Toomey, president of the Republican antitax group Club for Growth, said Mr. Edwards’s plan wouldn’t sit well with most voters, who, he said, “already think taxes are too high.” The idea is “very good news for the Republican candidate, whoever that may be.”
On “The Diane Rehm Show,” a public radio talk show, Mr. Edwards said this morning, “Our way of financing political campaigns is extraordinarily unhealthy.”
“We ought to be publicly financing our campaigns,” he concluded. “Period.”
That said, Mr. Edwards announced Monday that he will be reject public campaign funds, which will allow him to spend as much as he wants on his campaign. He said he made the decision because other candidates are doing the same. So far, he joins only Mrs. Clinton, but others are likely to follow. Meanwhile, both Senator John McCain and former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts were hitting up wealthy Republican donors in Texas on Monday.
What a difference two years makes. After defining himself as a moderate in the Senate and the 2004 campaign, Mr. Edwards is now tilting to the left of the other Democratic frontrunners.
Roger Simon at The Politico posits that Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama might reject of another campaign mainstay — the debates. Well, the really early ones, at least. They haven’t accepted any invitations yet, though the first forum is scheduled to go down in two weeks.
Though Mr. Obama hasn’t proposed a plan to deal with projected Medicare shortfalls, he could be on track to cutting his personal medical costs. The Chicago Tribune reports that he is making another attempt at quitting smoking. |
