Edwards said his mandatory health care .

FOXNews.com - John Edwards' Universal Health Care Plan Would Make Regular Checkups Mandatory - Politics | Republican Party | Democratic Party | Political Spectrum

TIPTON, Iowa - — Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards said on Sunday that his universal health care proposal would require that Americans go to the doctor for preventive care.

"It requires that everybody be covered. It requires that everybody get preventive care," he told a crowd sitting in lawn chairs in front of the Cedar County Courthouse. "If you are going to be in the system, you can't choose not to go to the doctor for 20 years. You have to go in and be checked and make sure that you are OK."

He noted, for example, that women would be required to have regular mammograms in an effort to find and treat "the first trace of problem." Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, announced earlier this year that her breast cancer had returned and spread.

Edwards said his mandatory health care plan would cover preventive, chronic and long-term health care. The plan would include mental health care as well as dental and vision coverage for all Americans.

"The whole idea is a continuum of care, basically from birth to death," he said.

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The former North Carolina senator said all presidential candidates talking about health care "ought to be asked one question: Does your plan cover every single American?"

"Because if it doesn't they should be made to explain what child, what woman, what man in America is not worthy of health care," he said. "Because in my view, everybody is worth health care."

Edwards said his plan would cost up to $120 billion a year, a cost he proposes covering by ending President Bush's tax cuts to people who make more than $200,000 per year.

Edwards, who has been criticized by some for calling on Americans to be willing to give up their SUVs while driving one, acknowledged Sunday that he owns a Ford Escape hybrid SUV, purchased within the year, and a Chrysler Pacificia, which he said he has had for years.

"I think all of us have to move, have to make progress," he said. "I'm not holyier-than-thou about this. ... I'm like a lot of Americans, I see how serious this issue is and I want to address it myself and I want to help lead the nation in the right direction."

He said he would not buy another SUV in the future.

The Ford Escape, the first hybrid SUV on the market, gets an estimated 36 mpg in the city and 31 mpg on the highway.

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Political Radar: Edwards Weighs in on Universal Healthcare Mandate

Regarding Clinton Edwards noted, "She has a mandate which I think is the right thing to do," adding, "but she has no way to enforse the mandate."

"I'm mandating healthcare for every man woman and child in America and that's the only way to have real universal health care."

"Evertime you go into contact with the health care system or the government you will be signed up."

During a press avail following the event Edwards reiterated his mandate:

"Basically every time they come into contact with either the health care system or the government, whether it's payment of taxes, school, going to the library, whatever it is they will be signed up."

When asked by a reporter if an individual decided they didn't want health care Edwards quickly responded, "You don't get that choice."

John Edwards, health care jackboot

posted at 10:25 am on November 27, 2007 by Bryan


Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have of late engaged in a back-and-forth over their respective health care plans. Now John Edwards is swinging into the fray with a plan that is best summed up in a single word: Totalitarian. Not making this up.

“I’m mandating healthcare for every man woman and child in America and that’s the only way to have real universal healthcare.”

“Evertime you go into contact with the helathcare system or the govenment you will be signed up.”

During a press avail following the event Edwards reiterated his mandate:

“Basically every time they come into contact with either the healthcare system or the government, whether it’s payment of taxes, school, going to the library, whatever it is they will be signed up.”

When asked by a reporter if an individual decided they didn’t want healthcare Edwards quickly responded, “You don’t get that choice.“

“You don’t get that choice.” I could go the predictable route and note that Edwards is pro-choice when it comes to aborting babies but he’s anti-choice when it comes to buying health insurance. And I could even use his own pro-abort language against him to play up the irony, like this.

Q: What is your view on the decision on partial-birth abortion and most of the public agreeing with the court’s holding?

A: This decision by the Supreme Court is a perfect example of what’s at stake in this election. The kind of people that will be appointed to the US Supreme Court by the next president will control whether a woman’s freedom, freedom to choose, make her own health care decisions will be made by her or will be made by the government or by some men sitting on the US Supreme Court.

She can make her own “health care” decisions to kill, but not to decide whether health insurance itself is really in her interests or not. Gotcha.

So I’ll note all of that, but I’m more curious about something else: How does Silky plan on enforcing his plan to take away the choice to opt out of health care insurance? Say you’re uninsured by choice and you go to the doctor for some innocuous thing or another, and on your way out the receptionist starts enrolling you in some insurance plan that you don’t want. Suppose you refuse to answer the receptionist’s questions, questions probing for personal info and the like that goes on the enrollment form. What’s Silky’s enforcement mechanism? Do the state police get a call to come pick you up and find ways of making you talk to the receptionist? Does the Silky administration levy some giant fine on you and then turn around and use the proceeds to buy you a health plan that you don’t want? Will the IRS garnish your wages? Is John Edwards going to criminalize your choice to opt out of health care insurance?

What’s the plan, man? You can’t just toss up a mandate without putting some legal teeth behind it, or you haven’t really done anything that’s likely to change anyone’s behavior. So show us your teeth, Silky

[Bavarian]

Typical Socialist! Mandating what Dr you see, what treatment you get. Mark my words, the tax increases will spread to all, there will be rationing of health-care, people with chronic diseases that the Government opposes will be denied coverage. Look at current socialised medicine in other countries, smoke, overweight, over a certain age, no treatment. Guess that is solution to pension problems, stop treating people over 70.