Clinton on Health Care

While I happen to be learning about the topic Hillary Clinton announced her Universal Health Care Plan.

It's interesting, a few days ago this would have been meaningless news to me. Now I'm actually quite curious about it.

Given my very limited (and one sided, and probably wrong) source of information, I have to say I think I agree with Edward's perspective on the topic:

Former senator John Edwards (D-N.C.), who proposed a universal health-care plan earlier this year, said Clinton's plan failed to take on the insurance industry strongly enough. "The lesson Senator Clinton seems to have learned from her experience with health care is, 'If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.' I learned a very different lesson from decades of fighting powerful interests - you can never join 'em, you just have to beat 'em," he said.

This of course assumes that the health care system really is as broken as I think it is. It does indeed seem like Clinton is suggesting an important step, but isn't going far enough.

And check out Obama's comments:

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) issued a statement lauding Clinton's effort but suggesting that he would be better suited to accomplishing a healthcare overhaul because of his ability to achieve consensus. "I commend Senator Clinton for her health care proposal," Obama said. "It's similar to the one I put forth last spring, though my universal health-care plan would go further in reducing the punishing cost of health care than any other proposal that's been offered in this campaign. But the real key to passing any health-care reform is the ability to bring people together in an open, transparent process that builds a broad consensus for change."

He's coming off as a bit too smug and confident for my liking. I suppose he can argue that his plan is better, but I don't get this whole "I can build consensus where you can't" attitude. I guess that's a coded phrase meant to mean something to someone (like, say family values). But it doesn't mean anything to me.

C'mon Obama - you can do so much better. Don't make me vote for Edwards.