IN YOUR May 30 editorial ("Obama's incomplete health plan"), you criticize Barack Obama's plan for health insurance and prefer the scheme put forward by John Edwards . In the last paragraph, you recognize that the truly "grand vision" belongs to Dennis Kucinich, who favors single-payer, tax-based healthcare such as that provided in virtually every other advanced nation. However, you despair of achieving this vision over the entrenched opposition of the insurance industry, and therefore promote Edwards's promise of universal coverage as more viable.
It is a sad commentary on American presidential politics that only the marginal candidate Kucinich dares propose what any dispassionate observer must conclude is the only sane approach to the present chaos. That none of the other Democratic candidates can speak openly of single-payer is a tribute to the stranglehold that corporate money has on our political system.
For newspapers like the Globe likewise to pander to the insurance industry by backing stopgap measures is a shame.
Throughout our history, we have relied upon the press not to follow office holders, but to lead them. If the Globe does not dare advocate what it knows is right, what hope is there for mere politicians?
SUMNER Z. KAPLAN
Jamaica PlainThe writer is a former member of the Massachusetts House.
6/5/07
The Health Care Plans
A great letter in today's Globe regarding the various health care plans from the Democratic candidates.
