EDWARDS' BAD WORD CHOICE

John Edwards has some very good ideas about improving America's health care system but a bad feel for words. This is how the AP covered one of his ideas:

Edwards Backs Mandatory Preventive Care
Sep 2 04:27 PM US/Eastern
By AMY LORENTZEN
Associated Press Writer

TIPTON, Iowa (AP) - Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards said on Sunday that his universal health care proposal would require that Americans go to the doctor for preventive care.

"It requires that everybody be covered. It requires that everybody get preventive care," he told a crowd sitting in lawn chairs in front of the Cedar County Courthouse. "If you are going to be in the system, you can't choose not to go to the doctor for 20 years. You have to go in and be checked and make sure that you are OK."

This notion that the government will mandate check-ups is precisely the wrong way to put the issue. The wingnuts are going crazy about the government "mandating" preventive care and that notion goes against the American sense of freedom. Ezra Klein points out that the plan Edwards has made available on his website does NOT mention "mandates":

He will also require preventive care coverage, with public plans offering preventive care without co-payments, and provide incentives for patients to participate.

Ezra puts Edwards' position better than Edwards did:

Preventive care will be covered, and in the public plan, it will be free. Patients will have incentives to avail themselves of preventive options. But there won't be any mandate for X doctor's visits every Y years. Insofar as anyone has to do anything, the insurers will have to offer patients the option of preventive care. That's a perfectly defensible, even worthwhile, policy position. Edwards should explain it much better.