Some highlights:
I can only imagine what would be different today if we have gotten health reform in 1993-1994. Would we have millions of uninsured today? Would we have so many companies taking their jobs and capital overseas? Would we be losing more than a $100 billion a year in economic productivity? Would we have more than 25,000 citizens a year who die because they are uninsured? There is no way to know. But what we do know is absent health reform, all of those things will continue to be true....We can't miss the chance to get health reform right. We can and must take advantage of this opportunity and get this right for the American people.
We've got to hit back on this issue. She's hitting all the right notes: healthcare is an economic issue and a moral issue - maybe even a national security issue.
And the Republicans? They're the deregulation cheerleading squad, and look where that's gotten us in the markets these past few days. Not to mention that private healthcare is simply not more efficient, as the the conservatives are so fond of claiming. In the words of Mrs. Edwards:
The individual market is simply more administratively expensive than the group market. This is obvious. The marketing and underwriting costs alone drive up costs.
This is such a winning issue for Democrats. In tough economic times, the Republicans not only want to start charging a health tax, but they also want to radically deregulate so they can work the same magic in the healthcare industry that they did with Wall Street the past 8 years.
With the bailouts - totaling over 1 trillion dollars, 400 billion dollar budget deficit, and 510 billion dollar trade deficit - not to mention consumer debt and tightening credit markets and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - it's not looking good for national healthcare.
Congress is about to vote on "bailing us out". They are just digging a deeper hole and nobody seems to get that, or care.