Hard Questions for John McCain from Elizabeth Edwards

Being on opposite sides of the political divide, it is not surprising that presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain and the wife of former hopeful John Edwards disagree on a number of issues.

This has now been thrown into sharp relief by a recent guest posting by Elizabeth Edwards on the ThinkProgress website:

I freely admit that I am confused about the role of overnight funding in repurchase markets in the collapse of Bear Stearns. What I am not confused about is John McCain’s health care proposal. Apparently Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a senior policy advisor to McCain, thinks I do “not understand the comprehensive nature of the senator’s proposal.” The problem, Douglas, is that, despite fuzzy language and feel-good lines in the Senator’s proposal, I do understand exactly how devastating it will be to people who have the health conditions with which the Senator and I are confronted (melanoma for him, breast cancer for me) but do not have the financial resources we have. In very unconfusing language: they are left outside the clinic doors.

She then proceeds to ask a series of very pointed questions about the McCain plan from the perspective of a person with an existing condition. Emphasizing his reputation for being a "straight talker," she calls on him to provide straight to in response to her questions.

It is a sobering post. Especially when her lead in question is:

Under your plan, Senator McCain, would any health insurer be required to sell you or me (or those like us with pre-existing conditions) a health insurance policy?

She goes on to ask incisive questions about the market driven approach, pointing out that cheap insurance is often made available through efforts on the insurer's part to avoid treatment of high cost or chronic diseases such as her own cancer.

We will see what, if any, response is to be had from the McCain camp as time goes by.

SOURCE: "sponds: Why Are People Like Me Left Out Of Your Health Care Proposal, Sen. McCain?" 04/01/08
photo courtesy of Library of Congress via pingnews, used under this Creative Commons license