I feel the same way...I'm waiting for someone to give a real answer. I've heard that Hilary wants to mandate health ins (like car ins) but how do we afford it? No one wants to insure me after brain cancer without charging arms and legs!

I plan on voting for Hillary. I know that right after her husband took office, she tried like hell to implement health care reform and Congress shut her right down. I think that in these times, there is more of a chance of it happening. Even mandating health ins would be an improvment at this point. Like with car ins, the companys would be required to cover us, regardless of pre-existing conditions, at an affordable price.

well It may not be a popular opinion but I think that no good can come from electing Hilary. she has proven in manyways that she cannot be trusted in the past before she was even a senator it is amazing to see how gullible the american people will be we elected that idiot husband of hers twice. it is amazing he did so much when he was in office . which equates to the work that the republicans did be fore he brought his worthless carcass into the white house. I admit that there are problems with both parties but hilary isnt the answer.

I dunno, I may just vote for her because she's a woman, but I've heard she's still pro-war. And that's not my style.

Look at Canada. That is something we should do, only have different kinds you can get. Or we pay half and the other is balanced through taxes. Someone needs an answer soon though, I'll agree on that.

Hillary has got my vote. She's done her homework for more than a decade on this.

As for how we mandate health insurance.. Massachusetts is trying that out right now. You have to have health ins. but if you fall under an income line, you get it free from the state, if you fall between certain income brackets, you can get various sorts of partially state-subsized health insurance. It's a good way to make it work.. if everyone is obligated to have health insurance, they can make it cheaper, because they'll be taking in more $ overall and not everyone will be having lots of expensive health care needs (but everyone will be covered if they do have a need!)

I think it's great that Mass. is trying this out and I'm really looking forward to seeing how it work.. Hopefully if it goes smoothly, it will help Hillary get her ideas passed without too much opposition *knocks on wood*

Sure, people can come up with theoretical problems with any plan, but obviously we need to do something, and other countries have programs that work much better than ours! so it's not as though there aren't models to work from! People complain that socialized health care will mean higher taxes, but I say "who cares".. if we arrange it right, people who can afford it will shoulder the brunt of the tax increase (yes, I'm in favor of higher taxes for the rich, it just makes sense, and I'm confident that I'll still feel that way even when i get out of school and am in a higher tax bracket myself!)

Right now, if we were to go on my husband's benefits plan, it would cost us $40/week... he makes $350/week. that's 11% of his income that would go toward getting us insured - and we only have that option as long as he is employed at his current location.

So the way I see it.. they could impose up to an 11% tax increase and we'd still be in a better situation because at least those benefits would exist whether or not we were currently employed (and if we lost our jobs, the amount that we paid would actually go down or be non-existant based on our income..)

There are definitely ways to make universal healthcare work!

Actually, John Edwards has a real plan.
Read about it here: http://johnedwards.com/issues/health-care/
It appears that Clinton is supporting his plan.
I think the democratic ticket will be
Clinton/Edwards 2008

I adore Edwards and would be thrilled to vote for a Clinton/Edwards ticket.

I hope that no one is getting swept up in the news reports of "clinton stealing edwards' health care plan" though.. it's all a bunch of BS.

Hillary has been working on health care plans for nearly a decade and talking about them openly.. and both Edwards & Clintons plans are extremely similar to eachother, but more to the plan implemented in Massachusetts and a plan being presented in California.. We should be rejoicing that the democratic candidates are so close to agreement on this issue (it just makes it more clear that they are coming up with good ideas that seem to work and are self-evident enough and valid enough that they might actually work)

http://www.cnbc.com/id/20823958/

This page gives a decent comparison between plans by obama, edwards, and hillary.

Do you have a reliable source that shows campaign contributions?
I've received several slanderous e-mails that have accused Edwards and all the Democrats of having big drug companies as backers.
I'm reluctant to believe such information w/o a reliable source or at least some specific detailed information.
Thank you.

MayFly81,
I may have gotten some bad information, it was in an e-mail bulletin from a Clinton supporters that she(Clinton) supported Edwards plan. I carefully wrote "appears" because I have a hard time verifying the truth and I don't want to spread more false information.
Cares

Personally I am going with Edwards.

My question is why would anyone be surprised that drug companies would contribute $$ to presidential candidates from either of the "main" parties? Of course they are.. it doesn't mean that the candidates are in Big Pharma's pocket.. the "donations" to the campaigns don't come with documents to sign making the candidates slaves to the companies. Sure the money can be looked at as a way of Big Pharma saying "hey, if you get to be president, don't forget about us when you're messing around with insurance reform!" but it doesn't put the future president under any obligation to serve the corporate interests. The #s that I've seen show that while Democratic candidates get money from all the major lobbyists, it's WAY less than the same lobbyists are giving to Republican candidates across the board. They know that the Reps are going to do right by them, but they throw a little money toward the Dems in case a Dem gets in office.. they want to be looked at as teamplayers. It would be great if the corporations and lobbyists would just butt out, if we would seriously limit the amount of $$ involved in running for president so that it wasn't a financial competition...
But seriously, please don't get too caught up in the reports about who is taking contributions from who.. everyone is taking contributions from everyone and I'm sure if we took a serious look at the HUGE lists of contributors to every candidate it would be alarming.. but remember.. it's not like these contributions are all being hand delivered at personal meetings with the candidate where the lobbyist discusses their needs and the canddiate agrees "yes, in exchange for this check, I will screw over the american public in every way that you tell me to"..
the contribution comes as a check, one of billions of checks that comes in, and is probably processed by some volunteer college student who is working in a warehouse in central New Jersey in a makeshift office and who is trying to do their calculus homework while sorting checks and who isn't really paying attention to where the check comes from. I remember watching an old Michael Moore show or movie or something where he was sending contributions to various campaigns that were donated by organizations with names that indicated that they were Satanic groups.. just to show how little the candidates were paying attention to where the money came from...

I agree w/ you Mayfly. However, there is more mud-slinging than focusing on the real issues. And it seems like that is what happened to this topic...LOL

I think big pharma needs to be reeled in they need to be regulated. My vote goes for John Edwards. He's the man.

Cares68, I think that you are correct about Clinton supporting Edwards' plan... I was just pointing out that their plans are very similar (both based on the same structure) So it's not that Hillary thinks Edwards' plan is better than hers, she just agrees that Edwards' plan is good :)

I went on a bit of a rant because there are also a lot of news articles about Clinton "copying" Edwards' plan.. which is a little absurd. I think it's sad how only the catty drama makes the news sometimes. It really distracts people from the issues that they might otherwise care about.. and leads people to feel rather helpless.. as though there are no good candidates. I believe that we have a lot of good candidates and if you look at their good qualites and the good things that they have to offer more than the negatives that are exaggerated and elaborated and thrown in our faces constantly.. I think that there's a lot of room for hope with the candidates that we're being offered.

As far as Edwards vs. Clinton, I think they are both good people with good ideas and both would make fine presidents. I slightly favor Hillary just because she's been through the ringer already as far as presidential/American government goes and I believe that she has learned a lot from the experience that would help her be president. I also think that having her in the whitehouse would restore a lot of respect that America has lost in the global community over the past 7 years.. (Now I'm going waaaay off topic..sorry!)

Really, despite my slight bias toward Hillary, I try to not turn "against" any of the primary candidates too strongly because my state really doesn't get much of a say in it! I'm not usually one for a defeatist attitude, but when it comes to presidential primaries.. it's all Iowa and New Hampshire and the other early primary states.. My preference between Clinton, Edwards, Obama.. doesn't really make a bit of difference. I think that the real value in the primary process is in letting the candidates talk to eachother and to America and letting them compete against eachother to gain our support... It puts some pressure on them all to make us happy..
But seriously, for me to say "I'm voting for Hillary" or "I'm with Edwards".. it's laughable. I'll vote for whoever the early primary states let me vote for! By the time any election gets to me, the decision will have been made as far as which democrat is on the ticket.. I may favor Hillary a bit, but if Edwards gets the nomination, I'll be wearing a Edwards button and going door to door begging people to vote for him! Right now, I'd might as well just wear a button that says "Edwards! Obama! Clinton! fight for America's love so I can help put one of you in the White house!!"