Can someone tell me why John Edwards doesn't just embrace single payer?

He just put out an ad where he will threaten Congress and make them pass universal healthcare within a year of his taking office.

Edwards makes a big deal about his health care plan being a bridge to single payer. He seems to be acknowledging single payer is the way to go but the implication is that it would be too much too soon and possible politically infeasible.

But if he can make Congress pass his universal healtcare plan, why can't he make them pass single payer? Kucinich has a bill in the hopper with like 90 cosponsors?

is that it is NOT single-payer only. a straight single-payer wouldn't pass. This bill has a chance because it gives the average person a choice. As he has said himself, it puts the current system and single-payer in competition with each other so we can see which one is the more effective.
and, obviously, single payer will win. Then the rhetoric on the Right will be disproved, and Congress will have no choice to go with single-payer.
I think it's brilliance! He's using RW rhetoric to destroy itself.

And if he's actually going to go to that extreme why not go for it for single payer?

I didn';t realize you were just baiting a "bash Edwards" thread. Sorry, I won't bite anymore.

For more (although I suspect that you may not be really interested) you can check this out:

The public-sector {component of Edwards' health care} plan would resemble Canada's single-payer system, in which insurance is publicly funded to control costs but doctors and hospitals remain private.

"The idea is to determine whether Americans actually want a private insurer or whether they would rather have a government-run ... single-payer plan," Edwards said. "We'll find out over time where people go."

The mix of market and government initiatives makes Edwards' plan much harder to attack than Clinton's early 1990s plan, said Leif Wellington Haase of the Century Foundation, a liberal-leaning think tank.

"In this plan, the changes happen much more gradually," Haase said. "Each element has a market element that deflects the attack. I think it's a very smart political document."

'A slippery slope'

Although Haase thinks the Edwards plan does not go far enough, conservatives fear it would take the country too far toward government-run care.

"It sets up a slippery slope to move toward a single-payer, government-run health care system," said Mike Tanner of the Cato Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank. "He realizes that Americans are not going to take that in one bite."

Tanner contends that under Edwards' parallel system, private insurance would be unable to compete with a taxpayer-funded system.

And if he's willing to go that far, why not do so in service of single payer?

that people have universal healthcare as quickly as possible. Without this warning, Congress would langour and a bill might not pass for years.

The GOP is already conflating HRC's plan with Single Payer and
you know their Game

Single Payer==Government Run Health Care.
Government Run Health Care =European Type Health Care
European type Health Care= Socialism.
Socialism is just a step away from Communism folks.

Edwards and Clinton are smart to keep the Public Private Approach
until American People can be convinced Dems can be trusted.

:evilgrin:

:hide:

they will gravitate to single payer when they see the advantages. Hillary will maintain private insurance companies, who give money to her.

Seriously, one thing that Edwards -- and the rest of the candidates and party for that matter -- should have learned from George Bush is to not think small. If these guys are serious about making real, meaningful changes to the health care system, then they need to start from the ideal end of things and work for that. Reach for the sky. Don't settle for second best. Instead, Edwards et al, from the get go, propose weak compromise positions that will be watered down even further before they could even be enacted. That none of them, save Kucinich and Gravel, are willing to fight for single payer indicates that they either don't believe in it, or don't wish to endanger their own personal positions by fighting for it and thus potentially alienating big money supporters. Imagine if all the Democratic contenders were championing single payer plans; instead, they've given up the battle before it's even been fought.