Is There Hope for Health Care?

By Jacob S. Hacker, TomPaine.com. Posted March 28, 2007.

Leading Democratic presidential candidates made clear on Saturday that "stay the course" is no longer a viable strategy on the health policy battlefield.

What a difference a year makes. Just 12 short months ago, health care was nowhere on the political agenda, and pundits were confidently stating that, after the failure of the Clinton health plan a dozen years prior, Americans continued to be wary of serious action. Affordable, quality health care for all Americans was a pipe dream.

Fast forward to Saturday morning, when leading presidential hopefuls gathered in Nevada for the "New Leadership on Health Care" forum, jointly sponsored by Center for American Progress and the Service Employees International Union. The event didn't create the kind of political fireworks that journalists crave. No Republican candidates showed up, unfortunately, and the Democrats who came -- in the order they spoke, John Edwards, Bill Richardson, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel -- were all civil and, to varying degrees, substantive. But the event did showcase something far more important than inter-campaign squabbles: Health care is the number one domestic policy issue going into the 2008 presidential race.