AP News, March 24th, 2007
John Edwards said Saturday he is "definitely in the race for the duration" as he sought to reassure supporters who may be worried that he can balance a presidential campaign with his wife's cancer diagnosis.
"I know because of the nature of the woman I'm married to that she will be there every single step of the way to make sure that I do it," said the Democrats' vice presidential nominee in 2004. "And we take our responsibility to serving this country very seriously."
Edwards spoke at a presidential candidate forum sponsored by the Service Employees International Union and the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a Washington-based policy group.
The event was focused on health care, and the candidates split over whether the Democratic priority of providing health care for all Americans would require a tax increase. Edwards said any politician who says they can provide universal health care and other promises while ending the federal deficit are not being honest.
"They've probably got a bridge in Brooklyn they want to sell you, too," Edwards said to laughter and applause. "I just don't think it can be done."
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, however, said he could provide universal care in his first year as president without raising taxes. Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois did not rule out a tax increase, but said they are committed to covering the estimated 47 million people in the U.S. without coverage.
"I have not foreclosed the possibility that we might need additional revenue in order to achieve my goal, but we shouldn't underestimate the amount of money that can be save in the existing system," Obama said.
"I can tell you I will do whatever it takes," he added.
Clinton said she cannot see putting more money into what she described as a current broken system. She said she is committed to succeeding where she failed in passing improvements to health care in her husband's first term in the White House.
"We're going to change the way we finance the system by taking away money from people who are doing well now," she said. Asked who that way, she mentioned insurance companies.
Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd said his plan would require a tax increase by repealing President Bush's cuts to top income-earners.
The forum came two days after the Democratic field got the news that Edwards planned to stay in the race while his wife, Elizabeth, fights the breast cancer that they learned has spread to her bone.
Edwards pointed out his wife, who sat in the front row, and said they both understand that dealing with their personal struggle will require "a focus and a maturity."
Edwards said he and his wife are getting too much credit for forging ahead when millions of women are enduring the same struggle and the additional worry of getting the necessary care.
"One of the reasons that I want to be president of the United States is to make sure that every woman and every person in America gets the same things that we have," Edwards said. His plan would require employers to provide insurance and individuals to have it at a cost of $90 billion to $120 billion.
No other candidate has given a cost estimate. Richardson said his plan would include a tax credit for low-income people who need coverage and prevention strategies such as a nationwide smoking ban like the one he signed in New Mexico.
He said he would pay for his plan in large part by ending the war in Iraq and shifting the military spending to human needs _ an idea that won loud applause.
"You have to do them both at the same time, you have to control costs and you have to expand coverage," Richardson said. "What I proposed is some new ideas within an existing system."
Video of the candidate forum was fed live over the Internet. The moderator, Time magazine's Karen Tumulty, took questions from Internet viewers as well as prescreened questions from union members in the audience.
Obama said he would have a detailed plan in a couple months, after he has a chance to discuss it further with experts and front-line workers.
He said he wants to require that employers either provide coverage or help their workers pay to get their own and favors cutting costs through prevention, management and technology improvements. He said Edwards' plan was "very credible," Clinton long had worked on the issues and Richardson had some good ideas.
Clinton said her deadline for universal health care would be two terms in office. She said part of the reason her plan failed in the early 1990s was that people with coverage did not understand that it would not change. "We're going to do a better job explaining this time," she said.
Dodd, who carried President Clinton's health care proposal in the Senate in the early 1990s, said he believed the political climate was ripe to enact universal health care because businesses are feeling the pinch of rising costs.
"If you get rid of tax cuts for top 2 percent of income earners, end this war in Iraq ... we ought to provide the resources to really move in this direction," Dodd said.
Kucinich promoted a universal, single-payer, not-for-profit health care system.
Former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel also spoke at the forum.
___
Associated Press writer Nedra Pickler in Washington contributed to this report.
