universal health care coverage -- what should our goal be?

[stranger81]

I've always believed in the necessity of universal health care coverage, to make sure that the tens of millions of Americans without health insurance are covered. It has always seemed to me to be a clear and manifest injustice that health care in this country is a privilege, not a right.

I've been thrilled to hear so many Democratic candidates focusing on universal health care, but was dismayed to read this in today's New York Times:

"Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and John Edwards, the former North Carolina senator, support a mandate. . . . 'The sad reality is that the uninsured don't just struggle with costs themselves, they impose costs on the rest of us,' Mrs. Clinton said in September. 'It's a hidden tax: the high cost of emergency room visits that could have been prevented by a much less expensive doctor's appointment, the cost of unpaid medical bills that lead insurance companies to raise rates on the rest of us.' Mr. Edwards echoed those remarks a week later. 'The reason the mandate is necessary is because you cannot have universal health care without it,' he said. 'Does not exist, and anyone who pretends it is, is not being straight.' Senator Barack Obama of Illinois sees it a different way. He argues there is danger in mandating coverage before it is clear it can be affordable for those at the margins. . . . 'I don't think that the problem with the American people is that they are not being forced to get health care,' Mr. Obama said. 'The problem is they can't afford it.'"

So what do you think? Do you think, like Clinton & Edwards, that the problem of uninsured Americans is pressing because it affects people who are insured by driving up costs? Or like Obama, do you believe the problem of the uninsured should be addressed because it affects people who can't afford insurance? Should our focus be on improving the lot of those who already have, or on improving the circumstances of those who have so little?