Democrats to push for rationed health care

Washington Post:

Democrats are launching an aggressive push for universal health care, fourteen years after a failed attempt on the issue resulted in political disaster.

A coalition of liberal groups that includes major labor unions such as the Service Employees International Union and the activist group MoveOn.org announced today it will spend $40 million to make health insurance a major issue in the campaign, with Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, as the one of the group's main spokespersons. The group, which has dubbed itself "Health Care for America Now!" plans to spend its money running ads in battleground states, canvassing 45 states to get people to sign petitions supporting the initiative and trying to get every member of Congress to sign a pledge to expand health insurance to all Americans.

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, Democratic staffers are trying to set up a structure for getting a bill through Congress next year.

The staffs of Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), who heads the Senate's Health, Education Pensions and Labor Committee, are already meeting with key health care experts, including some from Massachusetts, which passed a landmark health care law two years ago.

In a series of meetings over the next month, Senate aides plan to meet with doctors' groups, insurance companies, business associations and other key players in reforming health care. Their goal is to have the outlines of a health care proposal by the end of this year that can be introduced in the opening days of the next president's administration.

"We want to create a mandate," said Richard Kirsch, one of the leaders of the health care organization of the liberal groups, many of whom worked together to oppose President Bush's 2005 Social Security plan.

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This is just more proof that liberal control freaks want to ruin American health care. These plans have not worked anywhere they are tried. Canada would be up the creek if they were not permitted to send their overflow to the US. Then there is Cuba. If free universal health care is so wonderful why are all those Cubans risking their lives to get away from it? Click on the Health Care label below for numerous horror stories on Canadian and UK rationed health care.

The good news is that this is just another reason to energize conservative voters.