Democrats Fail the Easy Test of Political Courage

Elizabeth Edwards is on the offensive, pointing out that Sen. John McCain’s health care plan i.e. the Republican plan, would deny both of them insurance based on the fact that they had cancer.

Economist Paul Krugman recently described the marketplace approach to health care as the new version of voodoo economics. The idea that harnessing “the power of competition to produce greater coverage for Americans,’ reducing costs so that even people with pre-existing conditions could afford care …is sheer fantasy.”

Uwe Reinhardt wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association that "It's a sad thing, but when I go to international conferences, there's no question the U.S. health system is the bogeyman everywhere.”

In a Dallas Morning News article on Feb 7, 2006 about the health care system in Switzerland, it quoted one married couple who feels lucky they don’t have the US system to worry about. "We are very grateful to have the Swiss system, even though it's expensive. We could not afford this in the United States."

In what can only be described as bizarre, while the US brags that it has the most privatized system, despite the highest health care costs in the world, it could lower the costs even more by removing market intrusive government programs like Medicare and the VA.

Such a radical approach raises few eye brows when pushed so relentlessly by conservative ideologues despite the success and cost savings of government provided health care systems in all the other industrialized countries.

With such irrefutable evidence at its disposal, one would think the Democrats would coalesce around a popular solution to a problem the public overwhelmingly supports.

Forget it. The political courage within the Democratic Party has been driven out and replaced with a desire to compromise their moral and ethical convictions just so they could reach consensus.

Elizabeth Edwards pointed this out when comparing Hillary Clinton’s plan with Barack Obama’s. Regardless of Obama’s liberal credentials, his approach is a watered down version of Clinton’s and Edwards solution and does little to lower costs. She even points out that Obama attacked their health plans “using conservative talking points about choice and the evil of having the government tells you what to do.”

All we are left to do is watch families spend everything they saved for retirement, burn through their kid’s college funds or lose everything they own due to a single health care emergency.
There is little or no chance we can save US citizens the inhumane suffering encouraged by our current health care system.

In health care terms, the heart of the Democratic Party is suffering from cardiac failure.