Edwards calls for universal health care
By Barbara Barrett, Washington Correspondent
LAS VEGAS, NEV. - Presidential hopeful John Edwards, in his first public appearance since announcing that his wife's cancer has returned, pledged this morning to offer universal health care to all Americans and said that Elizabeth's illness helps show the needs of others.
Speaking at a health care forum at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, Edwards suggested that perhaps too much attention has been bestowed on him and Elizabeth in recent days.
After all, he pointed out, they have great health coverage. Many Americans don't.
"A lot of women with the exact same diagnosis had to get up the next morning and go to work. And the next morning to go to work," Edwards said, earning one of his greatest applause lines from a crowd of several hundred at the forum.
The forum, sponsored by the Service Employees International Union and the Center for American Progress Action Fund, was set up to focus on health care issues. All presidential candidates were invited; seven Democrats accepted, said moderator Karen Tumulty, national political correspondent for Time magazine. Among them were front-runners Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Edwards, a Democrat and former U.S. senator from North Carolina, was first on stage this morning.
In a three-minute speech, he thanked the public for their concerns about his wife. He greeted her in the audience. Then he ticked through his plan for universal health care. It would require employers to cover workers or pay into a fund for that purpose, while the federal government set up competitive health-care markets. It would offer consumers the choices among private coverage or a single-payer government plan.
And, Edwards said, every American would, by law, be required to participate.
"What we need is big, bold, dramatic change, not small change," Edwards said.
His plan would cost $90 billion to $120 billion, and he would pay for it by rolling back President Bush's tax cuts, he said.
During another 15 minutes of questions and answers, Tumulty asked Edwards whether he thinks it is possible to get to universal health care without tax increases.
"No," Edwards said. "I do not. I do not believe you can have universal health care without having a source of revenue."
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