Candidate Edwards’ health care plan calls for preventive care

Democratic presidentialhopeful John Edwards said on Sunday that his universal health careproposal would require that Americans go to the doctor for preventivecare.  “It requires that everybody be covered. It requires thateverybody get preventive care,” he told a crowd sitting in lawn chairsin front of the Cedar County Courthouse. “If you are going to be in thesystem, you can’t choose not to go to the doctor for 20 years. You haveto go in and be checked and make sure that you are OK.”  He noted, for example, that women would be required to haveregular mammograms in an effort to find and treat “the first trace ofproblem.” Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, announced earlier this yearthat her breast cancer had returned and spread.  Edwards said his mandatory health care plan would coverpreventive, chronic and long-term health care. The plan would includemental health care as well as dental and vision coverage for allAmericans.  The former North Carolina senator said all presidentialcandidates 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 whatchild, 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, acost he proposes covering by ending President Bush’s tax cuts to peoplewho make more than $200,000 per year.

Source/more:  http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/09/02/politics/p132756D66.DTL&type=politics