John Edwards 2008, what's not to like?

I like Edwards a lot, especially of the "major" Democratic candidates, but he's apparently got his detractors [don't we all?]. Anyway, there's a blog, John Edwards 2008: What's not to like, that someone has been working on very diligently.

The point of the blog seems to be to collect all in one place every unfavorable reference ever made about John Edwards. On a quick jaunt through the place, I found a few red flags and some pretty flimsy stuff too. Just acouple of quick hits:

Edwards also favors expanding H-1B visas. Boo, hiss. But look up your favorite candidate, they mostly all seem to be in favor of it.

I was unimpressed with the attempted takedown of Edwards' remarks on Sicko [I think I found it somewhere in the health care category], but I did want to say some things about this one entry.

Now consider the health plans of Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama. There are three important questions to be asked of each one:

Does the plan force anyone to choose between health care and other uses of money?

Does the plan force any provider of care to compete for patients based on price and/or quality of care?

Does the plan allow patients now trapped in schemes that ration care by waiting — Medicaid, SCHIP and emergency room free care — to have the same access to doctors, hospitals, clinics, etc., that privately insured patients have?

If the answer to the first question is “no,” the plan will not control costs. If the answer to the second question is “no,” the plan will not improve quality. If the answer to the third question is “no,” the plan will not increase access to care. And if the answer to all three is “no” — which I believe it is — the plan is hardly worth talking about.

If the answer to the first question is "no," the plan will not control costs?! Yes! Let's control costs by forcing people to choose between eating or going to the doctor! And if they would just have the courage and decency to just go ahead and die, that would save us even more money!

If the answer to the second question is “no,” the plan will not improve quality. I'll go to this hospital for my cancer operation, but wait the surgeon I want is only affiliated with that hospital, and the chemotherapy is best at this other hospital, and I'll need XYZ ambulance service to cart me around between them all.... For a more sober look at why treating patients as though they're consumers is just plain loony, check out Maggie Mahar's [author of Money-Driven Medicine] presentation, Why "Consumers" Can't Rein in the Cost of Health Care.

If the answer to the third question is “no,” the plan will not increase access to care. The problem with these people is that they really do not know that their health care is already being rationed. In a socialized system, the rationing-by-waiting-list, should it occur [and that's questionable in many cases], is transparent and usually as fair as possible. With for-profit health insurance, your care is also rationed, but neither the doctor nor the insurance company is going to tell you this. Furthermore, the rationing is not necessarily based on who most needs the care, but on what the insurance company feels is best for their profits. You'll never get the much-vaunted "cost transparency" so beloved of the conservatives because nobody is going to force the insurance comapnies to divulge their denial tactics.