Recently, former New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley, a Democrat, came out with the most thorough plan yet proposed in this election campaign. And it is up to us to ensure that right to every American. We recently asked Dr. Steffie Woolhandler about the Bradley plan. Woolhandler, an associate professor of Medicine at Harvard University and a founder of Physicians for a National Health Program, supports the Labor Party s Just Health Care Campaign. It seems like previous efforts to win substantive health care reform have failed partly because there s so much confusion about the different proposals.
Language is used so loosely.
I think there are two fundamental things a program has to have. More incremental approaches the idea that we re going to add in some people over here and then add some from over there . And it hasn t worked because we have more uninsured people now than ever before. Two, if you aren t going to abolish the private health insurance industry, you aren t going to be able to afford universal care. Because those insurance companies waste billions of dollars, and that s the money that you actually need in order to extend care to everyone.