Boldly taking on one of the most important issues of our time,

AP — Washington — Tue Mar 6, 6:31 PM ET
Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton called Tuesday for the majority of voters — women — to help her break the nation's highest glass ceiling by electing her the first female president.

And that's right in line with what kos wrote in the Washington Post ten months ago:

I'd just like to bring another blog to everyone's attention; I hope this is okay, as I don't have much to add. DrSteveB at DailyKos presents an outline of recent proposals for "universal health care" that he says benefit the insurance companies and don't do much for the people in the way of bringing low cost health care to everyone. I'd be grateful for your comments, either here, or at his blog.

that isn't as stupid as the shrub's plan is all right with me. I've plugged Verla Insko's Health Care for All bill, and the National Health Insurance Act (HR 676), and cheered almost any reform idea that comes along, because any step in the right direction is a start.

In an opinion piece that came out today, Phil Mattera of the Corporate Research Project asks,

"Why are we keeping a hopeless, for-profit health insurance system alive?"

You can read and comment on his article here.

Mattera opines on what each of several political figures want to do about health care reform, but basically all he says about John Edwards is that Edwards wants to tax the upper class to help the uninsured. I think Mattera has overlooked the most important features of what John Edwards is proposing to do, and how it could lead to phasing out private insurance companies' involvement with health care. Edwards recognizes that it's just not politically viable for us to jump straight to National Health (a la the United Kingdom or Canada). At this point in time, the insurance lobby is just not going to let fully nationalized health care happen, and Edwards knows that. What he calls for is to have both at the same time; consumers[I hate that word] people can individually choose between private health insurance or public health insurance, but everyone will be required to have one or the other. Because public health, like Medicare, will be more efficient, the insurance companies, in competition with public health, will have to streamline, tighten up, and (though Edwards doesn't say) accept more modest profits. Edwards sees this as a good way to transition, and his vision beyond is that eventually the people will vote on whether to keep a dual system or go fully to National Health. (It'll be a no-brainer.)

The Hinchey bill, HR 818, would have Medicare pay for certain qualifying acupuncture services. Do you think it's a step in the right direction? As it is right now, most acupuncture services are like spa treatments for the upper socioeconomic strata. A few beneficent acupuncturists run low-overhead community clinics with semi-private treatment areas and a low, sliding-scale fee structure, not requiring proof of income but empowering patients to decide what they can afford, seeing a lot of working-class patients, and at an average of $20 per visit, patients can afford to come enough times for slow but sure acupuncture to resolve stubborn problems. I applaud this kind of effort, and hope it catches on everywhere. We really need a lot more community with each other, people. But Medicare reimbursement of acupuncture sounds like a great idea, with private insurance sure to follow.