soc.veterans

Elizabeth Edwards Responds: Why Are People Like Me Left Out Of Your Health Care Proposal, Sen.
McCain?»

Our guest blogger is Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former Presidential candidate John Edwards.

elizI freely admit that I am confused about the role of overnight funding in repurchase markets
in the collapse of Bear Stearns. What I am not confused about is John McCain’s health care
proposal. Apparently Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a senior policy advisor to McCain, thinks I do “not
understand the comprehensive nature of the senator’s proposal.” The problem, Douglas, is that,
despite fuzzy language and feel-good lines in the Senator’s proposal, I do understand exactly
how devastating it will be to people who have the health conditions with which the Senator and
I are confronted (melanoma for him, breast cancer for me) but do not have the financial
resources we have. In very unconfusing language: they are left outside the clinic doors.

Senator McCain likes to start speeches with a litany of questions that, presumedly, less
plain-spoken politicians would refuse to answer. Well, here are some questions he does not ask
but, as that plain-spoken politician, he might want to answer:

1. Under your plan, Senator McCain, would any health insurer be required to sell you or me
(or those like us with pre-existing conditions) a health insurance policy?

2. You say your plan is going to increase competition to the point that it actually lowers
costs. Isn’t there competition today among insurance companies? Haven’t costs continued to go
up despite that competition?

3. You say that under your plan everyone is going to pay less for health insurance. Nice
words, I admit, but they are words we have heard before. You must know when American families
calculate the actual cost of health care, they have to include those deductibles and co-pays
and not just the cost of the insurance. Are you talking about cheaper overall or just a cheap
policy that doesn’t kick in until after thousands of dollars of deductibles have been paid?

4. Isn’t the type of competition you are talking about really a rush to the bottom? As
long as you allow insurers to underwrite and deny access, you encourage insurers to offer plans
that may be cheap, but that get that way by avoiding people with cancer or other high-cost
diseases or by limiting benefits and treatments, particularly if the treatment is expensive or
might be needed for a long time. We all live in the real world; those of us lucky enough to
have health insurance have seen how insurers cut coverage and up co-pays or deny particular
treatments. The insurance company makes money when it doesn’t have to pay for our health care.
(I suspect that if they could, they would write obstetrical-only policies for nuns.) Doesn’t
your plan really encourage insurers plans to compete to avoid people with cancer or other
high-cost diseases? Don’t you think that the kind of competition that starts with a decent
level of required coverage, that doesn’t exclude the care we actually need, would be better?

I am not confused about your reputation: you are the straight-talker, you like to say. This is
about health care, Senator McCain. Doesn’t the American voter deserve some straight answers to
these questions? As one of those with a pre-existing condition, I sure would like some straight
talk.

– Elizabeth Edwards

http://thinkprogress.org/wonkroom/2008/04/01/elizabeth-responds/