Senator wants universal health care plan
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A dozen years after Congress rejected a Clinton administration plan for universal health care, an Oregon Democrat is readying a proposal to provide health care coverage to all Americans through a pool of private insurance plans.
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Liberal Senator Terry Mercer is urging the federal government to get more serious about considering the idea of establishing a national pharmacare program which provincial premiers have been calling for.
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I hope the Republicans come prepared to debate health care this year, and they leave the platitudes and slogans home.  Enough of us have been seriously sick, or know someone who has, or have family members who have been or are now. The way the Republicans describe health care, it's as if they've never been through it or don't know anyone who has. I got some pushback, not much, from a casual mention of universal health care a few days ago. Some think the problem can be solved through the "private sector" but that's nonsense. There is no such thing in health care. It's not a free market, as anyone who's been through it can tell you. There's nothing free about it. (Free as in freedom, not as in free beer.) When you check into a hospital you turn over your whole being to the health care system. I can't imagine anything changing that, nor do I think it should. When you're dangerously ill, decisions must be made about you. To people who have never relinquished control, it's a big trip, because that's what you have to do. You spend huge amounts of time waiting. You can't sleep because hospitals are 24-by-7. You're much more likely to get an infection in a hospital, and infection on top of other disease can kill. Even so, people are treated and some even are cured by the system. Lives are definitely prolonged, pain is eased.  Whether we have universal health care or not, it won't change the basics of how health care works, and how unfair it is to be sick and fighting for your life. But there are some things we can change, and if you have a heart, and think about it, I don't see how anyone could be against universal health care and still sleep at night. One commenter said that no one is ever turned away from an emergency room, as if that's all there was to health care.  First, emergency rooms do turn people away, and some of them die. But most disease is not treated in emergency rooms. If you need drugs to treat cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's, AIDS, heart disease, depression, arthritis, emphysema, to name a few common chronic diseases -- you're out of luck if you don't have insurance. You could die years before you would with treatment, or might suffer, where if you had good insurance, you wouldn't.  I'm lucky I have good health insurance. It's lucky that I lived in Massachusetts when my COBRA policy expired, it's the one state in the US that has liberalized health insurance. I'm lucky that I can afford the monthly payments. I'm lucky. But why should getting the care and treatment you need depend on luck? We can do so much better. And I think our country would do better with a healthy population that knows if they, or someone they love, got sick they'll the help they need. It'll be interesting to see if we can get McCain to talk about this, if he turns out to be the Republcan nominee. The Republicans have never been responslble about this issue. It's of huge importance to Americans, and McCain presents himself as an honest person. He must understand how the health care system actually works. He's been through it himself, probably many times.  BTW, Hillary's passion for computerizing medical records is a good thing. She's right, a lot of money could be saved, the system could be made much more efficient, people would get better treatment, and lives would be saved. The sooner we get busy doing this, the better it will be for all of us.
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Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards said on Sunday that his universal health care proposal would require that Americans go to the doctor for preventive care.
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Former senator John Edwards (D-N.C.) says providing health coverage to the 47 million Americans who lack it is so important that he is willing to raise taxes to do it.
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Gov. Martin O'Malley and Democratic legislative leaders yesterday proposed providing health insurance to 100,000 poor uninsured adults in Maryland and subsidizing small businesses that offer coverage to their employees.
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Democratic Presidential Candidate Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware unveiled a health care plan Tuesday that he said would provide health insurance for all children, provide more coverage options for adults and focus on disease prevention and modernizing the nationÃ¢ÂÂs health care system.
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The Mayo Clinic today called for every individual to have basic universal insurance as a step toward gradually replacing the current employer-based system.
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Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday that a mandate requiring every American to purchase health insurance was the only way to achieve universal health care but she rejected the notion of punitive measures to force individuals into the health care system.
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The state wants to charge low-income residents too much for health insurance coverage, says state Senator Richard T. Moore , a key architect of the healthcare overhaul law.
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Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton is unveiling a sweeping health care proposal Monday that would require everyone to carry health insurance and offer federal subsidies to help reduce the cost of coverage.
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Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards on Monday proposed spending up to $120 billion a year to fix a "dysfunctional" health care system by requiring health insurance for all Americans and helping to make it more affordable.
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Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton unveiled a sweeping universal health care plan Monday that includes an individual mandate requiring each American to have health insurance. Individuals could keep their current coverage or pick from the same menu of private coverage options available to members of Congress, and the plan would provide refundable tax credits to help individuals pay their premiums.
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Bloomberg - May 29 (Bloomberg) -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama today announced a plan providing universal health care in the U.S. by 2012, to be paid for chiefly by employers and through tax increases on wealthy Americans.
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Hillary Rodham Clinton has promised a plan to bring health care to every American. She was to make good on that pledge Monday, unveiling a proposal requiring everyone to carry health insurance
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Bush and Kerry both talk about providing health care for the uninsured. Here's how they would do it
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California Gov. Arnold  Schwarzenegger on Tuesday vowed to continue pressing for  legislation that would provide health insurance to his state's  uninsured, a day after a universal health care bill he  supported died in a Senate committee.