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Local News & Opinion
Ref. : Local Newsbriefs Travel
Letters
Ref. : Letters to the editor Open Letters:
03.05 Open Letter to Congressman Bart Stupak Health & Environment
Video National Health Care Systems In Other Countries 03.12 Slick Barry and the $100-Billion Medicaid/Medicare Fraud Claim 03.09 Kill Bill: Death to Obamacare! 03.09 Obama’s Rhetoric May Be “Fiery,” But His Health Care Reform Is Still Lukewarm Media Watching
03.17 CNN Scrapes Bottom of Right-Wing Barrel With Erickson Hire 03.16 WPost Blames Obama First, on Israel 03.16 Letter to the New York Times' Editor: Stovepiping To Persia 03.12 Cud and Complicity: Burying the Alternatives to Empire's Dominion 03.11 NYT and the ACORN Hoax 03.05 Sorry, Rove, Bush Did Lie About Iraq 03.03 It's Snow News 03.03 The Woeful Washington Post Ref. : The Daily Howler Legal Matters
02.26 America's Supremes: Court Over Constitution US Politics, Policy & Culture
03.11 Power Rangers: Policing the System With the "Fightin' Progressives" 03.09 Thinking About Countings 03.07 Unnatural Acts: Breaking the Fever of Militarism 02.25 Future Shock: A Better World Beyond the Imperium High Crimes?
03.16 America's Secret Prisons 03.13 Palestinian Dispossession in East Jerusalem 03.12 Israeli Settlement Expansions Continue 03.11 Brutalizing Palestinian Children 03.08 The Russell Tribunal on Palestine: Barcelona Session 03.05 Targeting Israeli Apartheid 03.01 America's Permanent War Agenda 02.25 Global Sweatshop Wage Slavery Economics & Business Non/Mis/Malfeasance
03.14 The Crisis in America's Telecommunications Network 03.09 The Business of Water: Privatizing An Essential Resource 03.05 Is the Recovery Real? 03.04 IMF-Style Austerity Measures come to America: What “Fiscal Responsibility” Means To You 03.04 Barry C. Lynn's "Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism and Economics of Destruction" 03.01 Thinking About Fees International
03.15 Peace Process Hypocrisy: Stillborn from Inception 03.03 Muslim Disunity 03.02 Funding Israeli Militarism, Belligerence and Occupation 02.26 Iran Captures a 'Good' Terrorist We are a non-profit Internet-only newspaper publication founded in 1973. Your donation is essential to our survival.
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CAMPAIGN NEWS:Kucinich Assesses Opponents' Health Care Reform PlansSays Clinton, Obama, Edwards are "on the same page—the wrong page."
Says Kucinich: “The only thing ‘universal’ about their plans is that they universally fail to address the real reason 47 million Americans are uninsured and another 50 million are under-insured: for-profit insurance companies get rich by gouging people and by not paying for health care.”
September 18, 2007–On the issue of health care, the three leading candidates for the Democratic Presidential nomination are all on the same page: the wrong page, Democratic candidate and Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich said today.“There isn’t one iota’s difference between the plans put forward by Senator Clinton, Senator Obama, and former Senator Edwards because they all keep the for-profit health insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies in control of the health care system,” Kucinich said. “The only thing ‘universal’ about their plans is that they universally fail to address the real reason 47 million Americans are uninsured and another 50 million are under-insured: for-profit insurance companies get rich by gouging people and by not paying for health care.”
The Clinton, Obama, and Edwards plans, Kucinich charges, "will ensure that for-profit companies remain in control....instead of gouging the consumers, they’ll be gouging the taxpayers.”
“If you don’t have the courage to take on the insurance and pharmaceutical industries,” Kucinich said of the other Democratic candidates, “don’t try to fool the American people by pretending to offer real reform. The Clinton, Obama, and Edwards plans will ensure that for-profit companies remain in control, and they will be rewarded and enriched with federal subsidies to reduce the prices they charge. Instead of gouging the consumers, they’ll be gouging the taxpayers.”Kucinich also objected to the “mandates” proposed in the three plans. “These candidates want to force individual citizens and employers to buy health insurance, using the promise of tax credits to make the coercion more palatable. We shouldn’t be mandating that people buy private coverage, we should be guaranteeing coverage for our citizens like other enlightened industrialized nations do.”
"We shouldn’t be mandating that people buy private coverage," says Kuchinich. "We should be guaranteeing coverage for our citizens like other enlightened industrialized nations do.”
Kucinich noted that Americans spend more than $2 trillion a year on health care, and upwards of $600 billion covers costs that have nothing to do with care: profits, dividends, exorbitant salaries, executive compensation, stock options, advertising, paperwork, and coordination and duplication of services among the many private companies.“Take that money out of the pockets of the for-profit companies and put it into providing a national health care plan that covers everyone for everything,” Kucinich said. Comparing and contrasting the differences among the Cinton, Obama, and Edwards plans “is a phony debate,” he charged. “If they’re afraid of offending their campaign contributors from the for-profit health care industry, or they’re concerned about whatever personal investments they have in that industry, they should be honest about it and just say so.” He continued, “I can’t be bought, and I can’t be bossed, and that’s why I’m the only candidate willing and eager to challenge the insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies. The sooner we get the profit out of the system, the sooner every American can have access to comprehensive health care. It’s a right, and this nation has a moral and social responsibility to provide it.” Copyright © 2007 The Baltimore Chronicle. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Baltimore Chronicle content is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent. This story was published on September 18, 2007. |
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