Reply #25: Under the Edwards plan [View All]

[Time for change]

and the Kucinich and the Clinton plan, and even the Obama plan to a lesser extent, the government does essentially pay for health care.

Under the Edwards and Clinton plan, anyone who chooses will purchase insurance directly from the government. They do not have to go through HMOs or any kind of insurance plan whose purpose it is to make a profit. Those who cannot afford it on their own will receive generous subsidies from the government. This will be very similar to Medicare.

The only substantial difference is that people will have the choice of purchasing (more expensive and lower quality) insurance from private insurance companies instead of from the government if that's what they want to do. Why anyone would do that is hard to understand, but undoubtedly quite a few people will do it that way because they have been conditioned by 3 decades of right wing government and talking points to believe that "government is bad". Those people who decide to purchase insurance from private insurance companies instead of the government will pay a price for that. That is regrettable, but as people come to realize that government offers better quality health care at lower cost than do the private insurance companies, the insurance companies lose a great deal of business -- unless they decide to offer a comparable product to what the government is offering.