Edwards reaffirms he can handle pressures
LAS VEGAS - John Edwards said yesterday he would definitely stay in the presidential race, trying to reassure voters and donors that he can handle the dual pressure of the campaign and his wife's cancer diagnosis.
LAS VEGAS - John Edwards said yesterday he would definitely stay in the presidential race, trying to reassure voters and donors that he can handle the dual pressure of the campaign and his wife's cancer diagnosis.
At a Democratic presidential forum focused on health care, Edwards pressed his rivals to provide a detailed plan to cover the nation's uninsured - estimated at about 47 million - and describe how they would pay for it. His chief competitors, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, did not rule out the possibility they would follow his lead with a plan requiring a tax increase, but they provided no specifics.
"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 saved in the existing system," Obama said when asked whether he would raise taxes to reach his goal of universal coverage by the end of his first term.
"I can tell you I will do whatever it takes," the Illinois senator added.
Clinton did not say whether she was considering a tax increase, but she said she could not see putting more money into what she described as a broken system. She said she was committed to succeeding where she had failed with the health-care plan she crafted 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," said Clinton, who represents New York in the Senate. Asked whom she was referring to, she mentioned insurance companies.
The forum was sponsored by the Service Employees International Union and the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a Washington policy group.
It came two days after Edwards announced that the breast cancer his wife thought she had beaten had returned, this time in her ribs. He pointed out his wife, Elizabeth, sitting in the front row and said they both understood that dealing with their personal struggle would require "a focus and a maturity."
"I'm definitely in the race for the duration," he said. "This is not the first challenge that Elizabeth and I have been through."
Edwards pointed out that they lost their teenage son, Wade, 11 years ago in a car accident - something that he didn't talk about much when he ran for president four years ago.
"I know because of the nature of the woman I'm married to that she will be there every single step of the way," he said. "We take our responsibility to serving this country very seriously."
Edwards said he and his wife were getting too much credit for forging ahead when millions of women were 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.
Edwards said politicians who say 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."
No other candidate has given a cost estimate. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, however, said he could provide universal care in his first year as president without raising taxes.
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.
Sen. Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut said his plan would require a tax increase by repealing President Bush's cuts to the top 2 percent of income-earners.
