Elizabeth Edwards vs. John McCain on Health Care
02 04 08 - 13:56
Speaking to the Association of Health Care Journalists on Saturday, Elizabeth Edwards said that she and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., have something in common in addition to being cancer survivors: "Neither one of us would be covered by his health policy."
Edwards -- the wife of former presidential candidate and Sen. John Edwards, D-NC -- said that insurance companies, under McCain's proposal, "wouldn't have to cover preexisting conditions like melanoma and breast cancer."
Dr. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, senior policy advisor to McCain, told the Los Angeles Times that, in the words of the Times, "Edwards' comments were disappointing and that they revealed she did not understand the comprehensive nature of the senator's proposal."
Holtz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, said McCain's policy would harness "the power of competition to produce greater coverage for Americans."
Competition would lower health care costs, Holtz-Eakin argued, thus costs for consumers with or without preexisting conditions would fall.
Writing on the liberal Web site ThinkProgress, he wrote that Holtz-Eakin "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."
Noting that "Senator McCain likes to start speeches with a litany of questions that, presumedly, (sic) less plain-spoken politicians would refuse to answer" Edwards then offered "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?..."
I'll forward the questions to McCain's campaign and see if I can get any answers.
Without getting into the justice of the policy, I do wonder how much it would cost the average American if insurance companies were prohibited from considering preexisting conditions.