Today’s agenda at Take Back America includes speeches from Gov. Bill Richardson, Sen. Barack Obama, and John Edwards. I’ll post on each separately.
Richardson led off with a speech to attendees focusing on Iraq and global warming/energy conservation; nary a mention of health care, but health is not exactly a “red meat” topic, one that gets the crowd roaring. The after-speech press conference wasn’t much different – not a single question on or reference to health care.
Richardson’s health care platform mandates universal coverage, promotes tax breaks for lower-income Americans to help them buy health insurance, maintains some role for employers in funding and providing access to health care, and would allow people to buy into the Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan.
The 55 and older set will have the option to buy into Medicare. But Medicare itself would be dramatically different; Richardson appears to be pushing for the elimination of Medicare Advantage and other private-insurer based Medicare programs. I tried to find a Richardson staffer after the press conference to clarify – no luck.
Outside of those generalities, there’s little substance on the key issue of cost control. While universal coverage is critical, without some focus on health care cost control we’re going to be creating more demand without any control over supply.
And that’s going to make a big problem even bigger.
