Democrat Siege of Healthcare Sector Continues as John Edwards Calls for an End to the Market Driven Business Model

Companies across the subsectors collectively thought of as the healthcare industry are growing more nervous as Democrats change tactics and try to reorient the debate over business models in healthcare product and service fulfillment as an us-versus-them choice - vote another Republican into the White House and greedy healthcare executives and mercenary lobbyists will join them for payback; or pick a Democrat and it'll be universal, free healthcare and drugs for everybody.

But this week, our plucky, but distant third place contestant in the run for the Democratic nomination, John Edwards, finally delivered the most detailed proposal of his vision for a universal healthcare system, even as his wife battles breast cancer. Seizing the opportunity to position for appeal between the decidedly female base of rival and heir apparent, Hillary Clinton, herself having offered up precious few new ideas (although, in case you forgot, Hillary's nascent attempts at reform during her husband's administration nearly sunk him, but at least she never admitted to being wrong in her Senate vote on going to war in Iraq) and supporters of Barack Obama, the true-left's only choice and credited with a proposal that might be smart and serious, but is still vague and unarticulated.

Since Edwards' started living in Iowa last year in hopes of getting the big win he needs to survive past the Iowa Caucus, pharmaceutical and health insurance companies have started rethinking their business models in the event a populist radical like Edwards has a good showing and ends up running a re-energized campaign of his own, or even repeats his 2004 sidekick routine as an activist VP with a central healthcare agenda, so a Hillary or Obama President can worry about solving the energy crisis, healing the environment, tackling immigration reform and ... oh yeah, getting us out of Iraq.

Clips from an article by Sven Gustafson, Edwards Details Health Care Proposal, from the Associated Press sums things up below:

Edwards' plan would remove long-term patents for companies that develop breakthrough drugs and then reap large profits because of the monopolies those patents provide. He said offering cash incentives instead would allow multiple companies to produce generic and other versions of those drugs to drive down prices.

"Dealing with the health care crisis is about more than just about coverage," Edwards said. "Our health care system is entirely too expensive. We put more money into health care than any country in the industrialized world and we get one of the worst products out in the other end."

He also said his plan would require health insurance companies to spend at least 85 percent of the premiums they collect on patient care, adding that 30 percent of insurance premiums currently go toward administrative expenses and profit. He said New York, Minnesota, New Jersey, Florida already impose similar requirements.
His plan also would require that all Americans sign up for health insurance and would enact various reforms aimed at lowering administrative costs for providers and improving chronic and preventive care for patients. About 47 million people currently lack health insurance in the United States.

Edwards has faced criticism for his universal health care plan, in part because it would raise taxes and could cost $90 billion to $120 billion.
Edwards said Detroit, where General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group spend $16 billion annually on health care costs and are expected to pay $114 billion in future retiree benefits, is indicative of health care ailments felt nationwide.

"These companies and their unions made a promise to workers," he said. "And that promise was that they'd have health care coverage. And now it's time for the government to meet its share of the responsibility of ensuring that those promises are met."

But don't hand the keys to the Rose Garden over to the Democrats just yet; if Edwards does well enough in Iowa to invigorate his campaign without cutting a VP deal with Clinton, he could make a run as an Independent, which would reenact for Democrats the disastrous Republican split that brought a very different Clinton to office in 1992 when Ross Perot drew enough of the isolationist wing of the Republican Party to his Reform Party.

Maybe that's why some executives in the healthcare sector - including Pfizer and Blue Cross Blue Shield - are quietly funneling small campaign support Edwards' way...?

Nah, that's way too conspiracy-theory of me to think business would try to fuel a quixotic campaign that could result in a much more satisfactory character in the nation's highest office... then again, the thought of a Guiliani or Romney Presidency goes a long way toward easing the tension healthcare executives started building the first time they pictured Hillary that chilly January day in 2009 ... taking the Oath of Office.

Oh and, if the video below is any indication, she's probably be ready faster in the morning. Enjoy.